Axia Discussion Board

Hello Axians,

I notice your website has been scrubbed clean of HP switch mentions. I've got some clients with smaller installations (1-2 studios) using HP switches, and I just wondered why you're not recommending the HP switch anymore. Do my clients need to change out their switches?

- G.

Contractguy,

We recommend only Cisco switches now for a simple reason: they have proven to be reliable and able to perform.

When we first launched Axia, we did recommend switches from other makers, one of which was HP. Some of these switches have been discontinued by their manufacturers; some we have found issues with.

Unfortunately, the HP 2626 switch did not live up to its published spec, in such a way that, while it was (and is) perfectly usable for smaller Axia installations, it is unsuitable for larger studio clusters - and since one of Axia's main benefits is scalability and the possibility of simple future expansion, we decided to stop recommending it.

That said, there is no reason for your clients to change switches; if they're deployed and working, let them be! If, in the future, they choose to expand their systems, they'd likely look for higher-capacity switches anyway, and the HP problem would be moot.

BTW, we're not bound to Cisco in any way; we're not a partner or a reseller - we just find that they're the most dependable and do the job best. If, in the future, HP markets a switch that meets our performance criteria, we might recommend that, too (after testing, of course).