[nsp] Core and edge

[Chris Whyte]

This is a very good question and, imho, can only be answered by going
through the following process:

(Assuming you haven't) Define some guiding principles (in detail) that
should help you in *any* decision-making process. These principles
should be reflection of your group's philosophy and ideas on how you
define things like: simple, complex, flexible, etc. Clearly, your
definitions will often vary from others. These principles should also
reflect your business objectives and org structure. Take this
information and apply it to how you design, build and run a network and
I think the answer to your question becomes more self-evident. 

There's more stuff that applies but hopefully you get an idea of what
I'm trying to say. The point being, the answer I come to might be
different than the answer you come to because we likely have varying
objectives, definitions and ideas on how to design, build and run a
network.

Thanks,

Chris

> -----Original Message-----
> From: james [mailto:hackerwacker at cybermesa.com] 
> Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2003 8:58 PM
> To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
> Subject: [nsp] Core and edge
> 
> 
> 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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