[c-nsp] DS3 Y-Cable

[Mark Rogaski]

An entity claiming to be Eric Pylko (eric at infinitenetworks.us) wrote:
: 
: I don't know enough about the Y-adapter or the SMB cables it talks
: about. I don't know if there is something in the MGX hardware that
: "watches" the primary MGX for a failure state. That would be my guess.
: 

The Y-cabling on the MGX is not between individual MGX chassis, but between
corresponding ports on redundant service modules or trunk cards.  This is
also used on the IGX and BPX platforms.  The PXM processor card in the MGX
does indeed do the watching.  If a failure occurs on one of the service
modules, the failed card is reset and the standby card turns on its
transmitters and takes over.  In most cases it works pretty well, the
connected devices may only see a small number of path errors and a few
dropped packets.

However, I've swapped enough y-cables to know that manufacturing quality
is a big issue for this particular arrangement.

Mark

-- 
[]                    |
[] Mark Rogaski       |  Censorship is the tool of those who have the
[] wendigo at pobox.com  |  need to hide actualities from themselves and others.
[] mrogaski at cpan.org  |                     -- Charles Bukowski
[]                    |
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