Advice regarding Cisco/Juniper/HP

Wed Jun 30 20:50:40 UTC 2010

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:18:24 -0400, Greg Whynott <Greg.Whynott at oicr.on.ca>  
wrote:
> I like cisco,  but i think the HP way is more logical and less prone to  
> error.  A previous poster gave an excelent example,  i burnt myself not  
> adding the "add" to a trunk config on our cisco switches.   i went over  
> the magical number (and I've no idea why you need to use another  
> argument when you pass some threshold,  it seems redundant and silly) of  
> vlans and took out about 7 departments till I realized what I had  
> done.   thankfully you only need to do this once to learn.

Education is education.  If you don't know what you're doing (and paying  
attention), you eventually will do something stupid and break the whole  
internet.  Every manufacturer has their own specific brand of brain  
damage.  In the Cisco world, there are 3 modes... add vlans, remove vlans,  
and *specify* vlans.  Leaving out a word changes the entire meaning.

Typos are just as simple (even more simple) on an HP.  There's no  
add/remove mode for vlan port membership.  You specify the entire list  
every time.  Migrating port vlan assignments gets messy fast. (that's when  
people reach for IE to click a few checkboxes.)

Personally, I prefer a bit of both.  I like the HP method of keeping VLAN  
configuration in one section.  However, I'll give that up every time for  
Cisco's much simpler means of managing vlan port membership. (at least on  
anything supporting interface ranges :-))

> the trunking is more logical on HP config wise too,   there is a line in  
> the config which shows all the members and trunk type,  on one line.

On the other hand, looking at the interface configuration, there's zero  
indication it's a member of a trunk.  Cisco shows that in the interface  
config, and will immediately yell at you it you "unbalance" the  
port-group/etherchannel -- you shouldn't mess with the member interfaces  
directly once added to a port-group.

> not being able to issue commands while in config mode (without the 'do')  
> is annoying as hell too..

This is a safety measure to keep your mind on the road.  A typo in config  
mode can make a seriously royal mess.

> ... that woudl be the second issue,  the lack of consistency between  
> devices.  cisco owns that one.

No they don't.  Which version of IOS are you running? Oh, right, that  
switch doesn't run IOS, it runs CatOS?  Wait a min, that's a 1900... it  
uses a menu interface.

I have three Cisco switches right here that are radically different.  In  
fact, the 2948G-L3 confused a CCIE for several weeks. :-) Until I told him  
stop thinking "switch" and config it like a 48 port router. (and sadly, it  
doesn't support interface ranges. :-()

--Ricky