[nsp] Re: Newbie Cisco upgrade question, apologies in advance

[Mary Grace]

This message was posted originally on the isp-bgp list, and I was told that 
it should have been posted on cisco-nsp if I really wanted advice on Cisco 
equipment for this application.  Please, forgive me if this is not 
appropriate, but I hope that you will consider it appropriate!
*******************************
Thank you most graciously for the incredible knowledge that God has given 
you, and to everyone that has responded so generously to this message that 
we posted this past week, regarding routers for T3 circuits!

I am thankful to you all for sharing your knowledge in response to such a 
newbie question that I was almost ashamed to ask of you.

Since the last email, Mother Superior has talked to our generous 
contributor from the company who is a T3 circuit provider, and explained 
this list's advice regarding how it was such a "mismatch between a T3 in 
one port and a T1 in the other" and how BGP isn't really designed to 
perform well in a multi-homed situation with such a large difference in 
bandwidth between the two ports.

Thanks to your advice, and the wisdom of our MS, the provider has agreed to 
donate to our small teaching seminary and convent TWO DS3/T3 45 Mb/s 
point-to-point HDLC circuits, homed into two different exchange points in 
two different major cities (NAPs).

So, is it still true that we do not need anything more powerful than a 4500 
or 4700 to run this system?  I believe that is true if we take default 
routes advertised by the upstream on both sides, and the two diverse-path 
circuits ARE being advertised out of the same upstream AS, but is it still 
true if we were nuts enough to want to take full routes anyway from this 
same provider?  And why would we even want to take full routes?  It is true 
that, despite the gracious gift of the two DS3 circuits, we don't have much 
money to buy a router and so we want to find our what Cisco part numbers 
are needed for whichever model will support two DS3/T3 and one or two 
100base ethernet connections into our internal IP space.


Thanks again, and may God bless you all in many rich ways :-)

Your most thankful and humble servant before God,

Mary Grace



At 03:45 PM 6/24/03 -0700, Mike wrote:
>Yeah, but 3600's are at least 3-4x more expensive than a 4500 or 4700.
>
>Mike
>
>On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, Brian Thoman wrote:
>
>:| Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 10:48:26 -0400
>:| From: Brian Thoman <flyfisher at bambooflyrods.com>
>:| Reply-To: isp-bgp at isp-bgp.com
>:| To: isp-bgp at isp-bgp.com
>:| Subject: [isp-bgp] Re: Newbie Cisco upgrade question,
>:|      apologies in advance:-)
>:|
>:| Wouldn't a 3640 or 3660 off of eBay do the same trick?  We ran two 
>DS3's off a 3640 for a while with maxed out RAM.  It worked for us.
>:|
>:| ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>:| From: Mike <mike at motherone.com>
>:| Reply-To: isp-bgp at isp-bgp.com
>:| Date:  Tue, 17 Jun 2003 00:18:40 -0700 (PDT)
>:|
>:| >If you're looking for really inexpensive, and don't need full routes, get
>:| >a 4500/4700 and put a HSSI card in it. With an external CSU, and cable,
>:| >you could probably get the whole package for $600-750 on ebay.
>:| >
>:| >Otherwise, I would suggest looking at a 7100 series (7120 or 7140) with a
>:| >built in DS-3 port (or two). Those can be had for dirt cheap on ebay. They
>:| >have all the processing power of a comparable 7200, but they're a
>:| >smaller form factor and don't have as many port adapter slots (which it
>:| >doesn't sound like you need, anyhow).
>:| >
>:| >Mike
>:| >
>:| >
>:| >On Mon, 16 Jun 2003, E.B. Dreger wrote:
>:| >
>:| >:| Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 21:54:12 +0000 (GMT)
>:| >:| From: E.B. Dreger <eddy+public+spam at noc.everquick.net>
>:| >:| Reply-To: isp-bgp at isp-bgp.com
>:| >:| To: isp-bgp at isp-bgp.com
>:| >:| Subject: [isp-bgp] Re: Newbie Cisco upgrade question,
>:| >:|      apologies in advance :-)
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 20:43:03 -0400
>:| >:| MG> From: Mary Grace
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> Our tiny little non-profit religious network has been using a 
>pair of T1
>:| >:| MG> lines running BGP4 for  multihoming to two diverse-path 
>upstream ASNs for
>:| >:| MG> many years now.  We have our own portable IP address space and 
>ASN (of
>:| >:| MG> course), and have just decided to install our first DS3, 
>because a new
>:| >:|
>:| >:| I think that's the first "tiny little non-profit religious
>:| >:| network" I've ever heard of that had/needed that kind of
>:| >:| bandwidth.  You could run a moderate ISP using that...
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> upstream is offerring us $30 per month per meg port for a full
>:| >:| MG> HDLC-encapsulated point-to-point DS3 (yippee!).
>:| >:| MG>
>:| >:| MG> Our quandary is where to go to ask people with lots of clue on 
>BGP4/eBGP to
>:| >:| MG> tell us what the least expensive Cisco router we must buy to 
>replace the
>:| >:| MG> tired little 2600 series we currently have.  The router, which 
>need not be
>:| >:| MG> as race-car fast as a 7206VXR NPE400, should be able to take 
>full routes,
>:| >:|
>:| >:| Do you really need full tables?  For what you're doing, I doubt
>:| >:| it.  If there is some weird reason why you do, how many full
>:| >:| views will you take?
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> so I am told it must have at least 128 meg memory, and it must 
>be able to
>:| >:|
>:| >:| Maybe.
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> take a coax DS3 feed in to one card or module from the new 
>provider, and a
>:| >:|
>:| >:| Yes.  PA-T3 or PA-2T3.
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> lowly DS1 serial port now from an AdTran TSU on the other side 
>for one of
>:| >:|
>:| >:| Keep the 2610 in service.
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> the old DS1 providers, but be upgradeable someday to take a 
>second DS3
>:| >:|
>:| >:| No problem.
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| MG> card.  OF course, with a DS3 on one side, it has to have a 100base
>:| >:| MG> ethernet, unlike our blessed little sturdy cheapie 2610 :-)
>:| >:| MG>
>:| >:| MG> Again, please forgive this perhaps off-topic question, but who 
>knows better
>:| >:| MG> which router can hit the double scores of least expensive and 
>able to take
>:| >:| MG> full BGP4 routes for a DS3 but you learned and knowledgeable folks?
>:| >:| MG>
>:| >:| MG> Thanks in advance, and any charitable response that you may be 
>willing to
>:| >:| MG> offer us will have our most humble thanks!
>:| >:|
>:| >:| 7200 series would be best.  No need for VXR.
>:| >:|
>:| >:|
>:| >:| Eddy
>:| >:| --
>:| >:| Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division
>:| >:| Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building
>:| >:| Phone: +1 (785) 865-5885 Lawrence and [inter]national
>:| >:| Phone: +1 (316) 794-8922 Wichita
>:| >:| _________________________________________________________________
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