I have been using Juniper switches, primarily in office networking but also in some data center applications, for a long time in my career and I often advocate for bringing them into a new organization. They have been solid workhorses for me, having used 4550s, 4600s, 4300s, as core or access switches. There have sometimes been problems but I'd say that is true for any vendor and usually what I have been doing with them is pretty basic features that tend to not encounter many bugs.
In previous companies I have always had the luxury of a connected global network for remote locations and management is done from inside the network or through a VPN concentrator, both things I do not have in my current company and really have no appetite for creating. This is leading me to heavily consider cloud management dashboards. I have so far deployed one site using Juniper SkyEnterprise and it is not great. I have also been deploying Aruba Access points with Central and I am liking that experience which is getting me to consider Aruba switching to go with it. This company has even less need for anything complex at most of the sites so I am considering 2930f or possibly 2930m models.
What is blowing me away and causing me to rethink Aruba switching is the price difference to Juniper switches is high, in this case comparing 2930f 48 port PoE to a Juniper EX3400 has Aruba switches almost 80% more expensive. Is Juniper just priced extremely low? Maybe I'm not getting good pricing from Aruba? Am I making a mistake even considering Aruba switches?
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