[nsp] Core and edge

[Roy]

I have gone through the same thing here and elected the edge.  The automatic
redundancy of the core is nice but operationally, the edge is better.  So the
question is which is more important to you.  My Ciscos stay up for weeks and
then get rebooted because of some change rather than a crash so I downplayed the
automatic redundancy.  Load balancing is easier to do and routing problems can
be trouble shot much easier.  My core has spare ports so if a disaster were to
strike, I can just recable.

james wrote:

> Our network comes together, star fashion, at our NOC.
> There we have 2 7206's, the edge is a NPE300, the
> core a NPE400. The edge has a DS3 to the internet
> and the core aggregates a DS3 for DSL and T-1 and frame
> relay users plus our PoPs, an IMA group to another DSL provider and
> a 3 meg MPPP connection for a secondary connection. I expect
> we will add a DS3 or just move to an OC3 in 6 months, on the core.
> At present neither router goes above 10-15 % 1 and 5 min CPU
> utilization.
>
> We are getting another DS3 (another primary internet connection)
> and I am wondering which router to
> stick it on. I like keeping and edge and core separation, so I
> want to use the NPE300 (the current edge). Others want to
> use the NPE400 (core), so we have redundancy if the edge dies.
> With edge/core separation, my Snort box is happy mirroring the Ethernet
> of the edge, and hears almost everything. We do find Snort very useful.
> It seems to me it is better to separate the complex core routing/switching,
> with all its ports from BGP & let the edge run BGP and worry about just
> a few ports.  I am working with default, direct, customer, & 1 or 2 AS's out
> from each provider. ~10k routes. The  redundancy argument is a good one,
> though, and I would appreciate the lists thoughts on this.
>
> James Edwards
> jamesh at cybermesa.com
> Routing and Security
>
>
>
>
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