[c-nsp] Extreme vs. Cisco

[William S. Duncanson]

Well, this was published in 2001, and was what finally clued me in to why we
were seeing with the 6808.  Seems that even with the Sup1/2 series, Cisco
still beat the Extreme handily.  I believe they describe the BD's
performance as "anemic".
http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2001/0416rev2.html

The 6808 is still listed as current on Extreme's webpage, and we were
working with the latest MSM's.

Obviously, a single bad experience with an Extreme switch doesn't mean that
their products are substandard.

-----Original Message-----
From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net
[mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Mikael Abrahamsson
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 14:47
To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Extreme vs. Cisco

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
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