* Guy.Davies@telindus.co.uk (Guy Davies) [Thu 06 Dec 2001, 22:13 CET]:
>> It's just a base M5 with the 4 port T1 PIC and the 4 port FE PIC. And
>> dual PS's. Other then that its just a base M5.
> That's a very poor use of the potential of the M5. The M5 is heavily
> overspecified for this function. You could easily do what you've got
> there with a 3600. Having said that, the 3600, 7200 and the 7500 are
> totally outclassed with respect to sheer grunt and port density. The
I'd like to see a 3600, even a 3660, forward 800 Mbps worth of packets
(4x FastEthernet full-duplex), though. Also, last I checked it doesn't
come with dual power supplies, although the 5300 is also 2U and has a
nifty small dual-AC power supply, so Cisco can make one that fits the
form size.
> M5 has similar grunt to the original GSR (nearest to the 12004 which
> never got beyond the beta stage or even the 12008 with it's original
> line cards!). The 10xxx range might also be considered similarly
> specified as might the 12404. Neither of these seem appropriate for
> your requirements (4 x T1 & 4 x FE).
You can say that again :-)
> So, as you can see, the M5/M10 really have no truly direct comparison
> in the Cisco range. My advice is to check the website. All the info
> is there. Alternatively, you could take Niels' advice and contact
> your local Cisco dealer. I'm sure they'd be happy to advise you on
> the positive aspects of their products ;-)
The nice thing about an M5 is the scalability. You can order 4-port
FastEthernet adapters for it; what Cisco product (that is not a Catalyst
in disguise) has this? A 7206VXR has six slots but you can only fit up
to eight FastEthernet ports in them (or fourteen if you go PA-FE-2ISL,
but you won't get both ports running at capacity then). The M5 can be
stuffed with 48 of them you'll still be able to run them all at full
capacity.
Sorry for the Cisco-bashing, but this is juniper-nsp after all. :-)
The problem here basically is that your requirements are not at all
hefty from the looks of it, which makes several Cisco products able to
fill the same hole in your topology. However, none of them will scale
to the heights the M5 can attain. The question is more: How much
traffic do you reckon your customer will be pushing through this box
before it has been written off?
-- Niels.
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