What needs improvement with Huawei Ethernet Switches?

Deploying Huawei Ethernet Switches in an organization offers advantages, especially if the decision is made early in the process and the company opts for a single-vendor approach. This simplifies implementation and customization, often resulting in lower prices and tailored solutions from Huawei. However, excessive customization can lead to support issues and challenges in knowledge transfer during employee turnover.

The solution’s stability could be improved. Huawei Ethernet Switches have not automated its firmware.

The licensing cost attached to the solution is atrocious, so from an improvement perspective, it should be made cheaper. The upgrade of firmware for devices from Huawei is very hard, but it is not much of a shortcoming. If you don't pay for the license, you will not get the firmware upgrade. When there is new firmware available, a user needs to upgrade it with the help of a manual, which may seem a bit weird and hard to achieve.

The product should improve cloud capability.

Huawei has a lot of issues; it's not in sync properly. For instance, if the ONT is down, there's another problem with another ONT that is not functioning correctly. Even after configuring the siding, I cannot reach some other side, and I don't know why it's happening. Another concern was with the ONT and using fiber.

The solution needs to provide GUI commands.

Compared with other brands like Cisco, modular cards may have some security issues or vulnerabilities. The only thing that could be better is the security module.

I would like the tool to improve its operational efficiency, speed, security features, and functionalities.

I'm still learning the solution. There are some support issues.

Huawei Switch can make further advancements as the current CLI lacks coherence as we have in Cisco CLI. Additionally, the available online documentation and training for the solution could improve.

Certain regulatory issues in a lot of countries cause limitations because access to these features are based on cost. For example, the RF timers for Ethernet ring protection with Juniper or Nokia are set to default at ten milliseconds. But the solution is set to one second. The convergence time is comparatively very high. The solution should take care with regulatory issues at the local or regional licensing levels. Tajas Networks is an example that does not have the same regulatory issues.

Our company uses this product in a country with an unstable power supply, so it would be nice to see improvements in the device's durability regarding power shortages in the product's next release.

We would always prefer if the solution were cheaper. The solution should make the text report more accessible.

I would like to see some improvements in the access layer switch that is available in Aruba.

We would like to have a greater level of automation using this solution. The customer support could also be faster.

It’s hard to get technical support.

I didn't like the Huawei Switches because of the different versions resetting the configuration issue. Huawei doesn't support Layer 3 modes while TOE and ARP have some issues.

I already had a background with Cisco, so getting used to their system was a little bit complex. The way you configure a VLAN in an access port or in a VLAN to be allowed in the trunk was totally different. They have a concept there with hybrid VLAN, and it kind of made things complex for me. We had a few issues with integration. In the company, we're using Huawei wireless and the wireless controller, and those switches are the ones that made the transition between the clients and the WiFi server, and we had a few problems. Some switches in our network are end-of-life. They shouldn't be there anymore. They're too old. They have already improved lots of things, however, the mistakes here will fall on our laps as we are using end-of-life devices, and they don't give support anymore for that.

We haven't had anything to complain about yet. The documentation needs to be better. When you run into issues, it's hard to figure out what might be wrong by referencing it.

The company needs to provide more on hand training on the product. They should market the product more so that companies are more aware of its existence and what it can do for them. Huawei should highlight some more use cases to help companies understand more about what they can do.

The configuration is very difficult even for someone who is already familiar with the configuration process.

They're not easy to monitor or bring in and feed and make sure that all our networks are running correctly. We are predominantly in regional Australia, which means that we have a lot of remote usages and we're not getting the ability to do the next level of IT needed to make sure that I can monitor and make sure that the network is stable with the Huawei stuff. If anything goes wrong, I haven't been able to patch them because they're end of license and you can't patch them any more. Their security is not within our standards. Huawei's switches could be more secure, more monitorable, and better scalable but that's because they're so old. They're not fit for our purpose under our government contracts any more. We're not allowed to use any Huawei products.

The price should be lowered as concerns flash backup. This would enable us to get rid of all of the mechanical, hard disks, as we currently have a mixture of flash and classic hard disks. I feel that technology is progressing fast enough and I believe that in the near future, within the next 12 months, we'll be able to add all flash backup systems to our solution. As for the switches, I think they will be all right for some time to come. If the network were to improve sufficiently, we would be able to make more use of the cloud, even as concerns the telephone. However, this is not the case at present. It is difficult for me to point to other areas needing improvement as we have been using the technology for a relatively short period, only around five months, and I am trying to digest what we have. My network engineers would be in a better position to address this issue. Also while our installation is not that large, we are working on huge projects. These are new to Morocco, consisting of two or three years, which is not that much. This said, we would like to see additional backup solutions, since we have several degrees of backup. For the moment, the final one involves magnetic tapes, which is an IBM solution. We would like to take the thread of these magnetic tapes and have Huawei help us with strategic backup. One of the reasons we backup our system is for fear of ransomware, but we are required to backup everything by the end of each day or at the close of each week. It would be nice to see other solutions which would allow this, as I am not satisfied with the current one involving the use of magnetic tape. I am not certain that using the cloud is a solution for the time being in Morocco. We are looking with Huawei at the possibility of using hardware. This is a point of concern. Moreover, we would like to see more security applications. We have network security, such as Fortinet and Fortigate, but we would like to see Huawei come out with its own solution. Maybe this already exists but, if so, it is not yet very well known. We are satisfied with the switches and, in our approximately six months experience, have not encountered problems. We have not had stoppages or buffer memory. What I would like to see is a complete solution in which the network security is integrated with the switching as well. This way, we could have a single source for the network and not need to rely on Fortinet and Fortigate. As far as wifi access is concerned, we do have a system, I believe called HP Aruba, but it is old. It would be nice to see this integrated. We are not looking to change things in the short term, but to undertake a six to ten month overhaul involving the wifi and integration of 5G and IOT into our network.

In order to improve the product, I'd like to see all devices have the ability to configure more easily. I think that's important. It's something I'd like to see in the next release along with improved scalability.

The graphical user interface could be much better. The vendor needs to make a better marketing effort to promote this product because you don't find a lot of good articles promoting it. Other brands are more aggressive in marketing. In the future, I would like to see a feature that includes a dynamic picture of all of the ports, and what is connected to them. The functionality may be there, but I haven't seen it yet. Being able to see what is going through the ports would be helpful.

The performance has been slow at times.

The configuration could be improved and deployment should be easier. It's also quite expensive.

The web interface is poor, it could be improved. The stability could be improved. Although it is suitable for us, it could have better third-party integration.

I do not know if I can think of a product feature that really needs to be improved. Especially right now, the most important thing for customers is cost and Huawei does have a very good price point. They are very competitive from a cost perspective. From a technology perspective and in my economic environment with my customers, Huawei has everything that I and the customers need. If I have one potential issue, it is that the technical support does not understand English so well. The issue is just that they should understand and speak English pretty well to provide proper technical support and solutions.

It would be helpful to have more commands. Technical support needs improvement. I would like to see more training opportunities available. It is very rare to find training with quality.

I had issues with patching the IOS. But right now I think Huawei has improved very much in the advanced technology and is more stable now. I think patch and bug fixes should be announced on a scheduled basis. That would eliminate the issues and improve the functionality of the device. It would be helpful.

There could be some improvement in the dashboards and that's something that could be included in the next update.

To improve the ethernet switches, I think first of all that Huawei should improve their knowledge base library. When people like me are trying to look for documents to study about the product to find a solution, sometimes the particular information I am looking for is quite hard to find. It should be an easy task to find a suitable document as a reference. By comparison, it is very easy to locate the information that you need for the Cisco systems. I just type the name of any features or any questions I might have into Google and I can find what I need in a matter of minutes. With Huawei, it is not that simple. I think the support also needs to be improved. Right now you have to be able to speak Mandarin in order to communicate with those technical experts and express your problem to make them understand what it is. When they know they can give you a solution to solve your problem, and the support is good in that way it is good. But they need more support for other languages. When I work with Cisco, for example, you can generally speak in English. I am not saying that the support people at Huawei do not know how to communicate in English at all, but find it quite difficult to communicate well with them because they have a very heavy Mandarin accent when speaking in English. It is better to just speak with them in mandarin if you can. Because I work only so often with the Huawei brand, I think these might be the only suggestions I have. I spent a long time with the technology but have not gotten very deeply into discovering the smaller details of Huawei switches until recent years.

I've found that the Huawei switches around the core fail, or at least the 9300 series do. I've had to move to Cisco. They tend to freeze and cause problems on my network, so I've needed to replace them with a bigger Cisco switch that can handle the network more effectively. With Cisco, there are a few particular routine protocols that are not supported on Huawei. Cisco has these proprietary routine protocols which they try to maintain. Since we have the two switches integrated together, it would be helpful if Huawei could offer a more open routine protocol that can be standardized, and they should offer the same protocols that are standard on Cisco on their service as well so that the switches can match up a bit more elegantly. It would be great if the two solutions could somehow actively collaborate a bit more together. The solution needs to provide a lot more availability. There needs to be more information on the internet to help people more easily configure the solution, etc. Right now, if you need to know something or need to find something, you have to go directly to Huawei. There needs to be more documentation. If they opened up a bit and shared more information and maybe allowed for YouTube videos about their products and how to work them, it would benefit the users quite a bit.

From the customer's perspective, they usually don't care about certain disadvantages because as a technician I am the one who deploys and configures the planning and communication for them. In my opinion, most of the basic configurations of the switches are all the same. In terms of Huawei specifically, the availability and the speed of the firmware updates are the only things wrong with Huawei. There are some vulnerabilities on the hardware. Cisco is good with releasing the patches. For Huawei, this aspect is problematic. I would like to see performance improved, including wi-fi flexibility.

In the next release, I would like to see an increase in the performance of DDoS protection systems against all kinds of attack packets.

We have a purchasing procedure. It says that if we want to buy a specific product or service we should get quotes from at least three companies. If we cannot get more than one quote we should find a similar product or service from a different vendor. We had this issue last year. We needed 15 access points and we wanted to buy Huawei access points because our other devices were Huawei. I wanted a quote from three Huawei partner but only one of them sent the quote. Other partners said that Huawei did not send any quote information because they send quote only one partner. We talked to Huawei regional sales manager but they said they can not do anything for this situation. Because of this situation, I searched for the products of other vendors. Aruba sent three quotes from its different partners and their quotes were similar. And also they were cheaper than Huawei. Because of the cost factor, our purchasing department preferred to buy Aruba access points. We had the same issue for the switches at around the end of 2019. Because I don't have time to search other vendors we canceled the purchasing and our budget for switches. Now I don't have any spare products and I will be trouble if one of my switches fails.

The software could be more stable. There are a lot of bugs reported for the IS portion. The GUI could be improved. It could be much more adaptable.

Troubleshooting documentation should be improved. The interoperability of the devices, in general, on the Huawei switches is not good and is known to be not good. Maybe they can improve this a bit. In terms of being able to patch quickly, if you have both a quality device, a quality switch that has a specific capability, Huawei won't necessarily have the same capability until a patch is created for it.

Integration could be improved. The price could also be lower.