[c-nsp] Extreme vs. Cisco

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Thu, 30 Mar 2006, William S. Duncanson wrote:

> We've also seen issues with performance not coming anywhere close to line
> rate when you start doing GEC.  I've seen a 6500 (Sup720's, 6516's) push
> traffic on an eight port GEC at 94%+ of line rate; the one Black Diamond
> I've worked with (6808) wasn't able to even come close to that.

You do realise that you're comparing technology from 1999 with technology 
from 2004-2005 somewhere? To compare the BD6808 you have to compare it to 
Sup1 and Sup2, not Sup720.

If you start to compare newer products, you end up with something like 
this:

Summit 200 = 2950, but the 200 has L3 forwarding
Summit X450 = Something in between 4948 and 3750
BD 8800 = 4500, but the 8800 has a fabric for 4*10GE per slot
BD 10808/12000 = 7600 with Sup720, but the Sup720 has more mature MPLS and 
optional larger forwarding tables.

The BD6808 was released in 1999 or so, but has had some technology 
refresh. We have used linecards and MSMs from 2004-2005 and they can 
handle ISP L3 traffic if you know what you're doing (not run full table 
and most traffic is routed via default-route).

You just have to realise that you have to know as much about Extreme as 
you know about Cisco to make it work properly. I sometimes think people 
know a lot about Cisco and very little about Extreme and then they are 
upset when it doesn't work like they expect.

Personally I think I know about as much about Extreme and I do Cisco and 
each have their strengths and weaknesses, you just have to realise what is 
good at doing what. Personally I think both cisco and extreme has dropped 
the ball in the metro ethernet area and there are other market leaders 
when it comes to that.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se