[nsp] Re: Catalyst 6500 Hybrid

[sthaug at nethelp.no]

> And if the 7600 was as functional a router and ran full line rate like
> a Juniper, with its current pricing, it would be truly amazing....
> 
> > If Juniper had a high density router that did GigE/10GE routing like a 
> > 7600 at the same kind of cost per port, then they would really be scary.

I'm not sure cisco-nsp is a good place for a Cisco - Juniper "slug
fest". That said, I think it's reasonable to have *some* discussion
about the advantages and disadvantages of the various platforms.
Jared?

At my previous employer we had a "Cisco only" policy for routers and
switches (with some legacy Nortel/Bay/Wellfleet equipment). I did not
agree with this policy, but I could live with it. I felt that there 
were some gaping holes in the Cisco product line - for instance, we
*really* needed a box with hardware based forwarding and possibility
of route processor redundancy, and smaller/less expensive than 7600
or 12000. The only thing Cisco had to offer was the 7304 - and with
redundancy in place this platform only has 2 usable slots. Not good
enough. There was also a clear impression that products like the
7304 and 10720 were "specialty" products - with different feature
sets, hardware architecture and bugs than the "mainline" 7200, 7500
and 12000 architectures.

At my present employer we have both Cisco and Juniper equipment. I
think it's fair to say that we're moving in the direction of Juniper
for core equipment and Cisco at the edges. We see significant Juniper
advantages when it comes to predictability (a feature will work the
way it's documented to work, without a lot of limitations and bugs
that are only discovered after starting to use the feature) and
uniformity across the product line (the M and T series architecture
are reasonably similar across the various models). This is not to
say that Juniper is perfect or that it covers all needs - on the
Metro networks side, for instance, Cisco clearly has a better
offering.

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug at nethelp.no