[c-nsp] BGP Router Considerations

[Paul Stewart]

Thanks Gert... appreciate your "open" approach to this ;)  I'm hoping to
sell some ideas internally on a "5 year plan".... long time to justify
anything it seems anymore...

Is there a GSR/switch combo I could use intead?  We've had GSR's and they
are rock solid, turn them on and forget them boxes ... at least for us....
if we went GSR route, perhaps I could look at 4500 series switches or
similar then.... 

Cost is always a consideration but I'm trying to combine scalability,
redundancy, and future-proof all in one... I know it's like a dream but if I
can be reasonably close than all the better....

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: Gert Doering [mailto:gert at greenie.muc.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 1:13 PM
To: Paul Stewart
Cc: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] BGP Router Considerations

Hi,

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 12:02:15PM -0400, Paul Stewart wrote:
> What I'm considering is removing the 12012 because of the space it 
> consumes (does all BGP today) and replacing it with a pair of 7606's 
> Sup720-3BXL etc
> 
> For BGP edge that's feeding 3 full BGP transit feeds and a couple 
> hundred peering sessions will the Sup720-3BXL cope ok from a memory
perspective.

The Sup720 is not very fast, regarding CPU wise (= BGP update handling) but
it will handle 3 full feeds just fine.

If you want a faster CPU, you might want to check the RSP720, but beware
(see below).

> The traffic is not a lot (500Mb/s or so) on this network . 

Traffic-wise, the Sup720 *is* fast :-)

> Thanks for any feedback.. We have lots of 6500's but everyone keeps 
> telling me lately to go 7600 series instead??

Basically it's the same thing.  And with IOS 12.2SX*, there was no
difference, except chassis colour.

Then came the 7600 business unit (BU) inside Cisco and decided "we're going
to sell Real Routers, can't have this switch chassis crap around!" and
forked a software train (12.2SRA/SRB/SRC) that nowadays doesn't run on
chassis that are labeled "6500" anymore.  Just because they do an EEPROM
check.  Otherwise there is still no difference.

There is some new hardware - the RSP720, the ES20 line cards, and the 7600-S
chassis - that are *only* supported by SR* software.  OTOH, there are "LAN
style" line cards, notably the 6708 8x10GE card, that only just recently
have been supported in SRC, and as far as I have heard, SRC is not very
mature yet.  Politely said.

OTOH, there is the 6500 business unit, that targets "enterprises" - their
IOS fork is 12.2SXH these days.  They build nice things that ISPs might want
to have as well, like "modular IOS with restartable processes in case BGP
leaks memory" (and, in theory, upgrades-without-reboot, and such), the
Sup720-10G supervisor engine, and thus.

Until recently, buying a 7600+Sup720 and running SXF/SXH was what we
considered "future proof" - you have a chassis that supports all the
software that's out there, and are saved from the internal politics
bullshit.  Unfortunately, that's not completely true anymore - the 7600-S
chassis are NOT supported by SXH IOS, and as far as we have been told, there
are no plans to do so.


So - what's the summary?  Cisco internal politics is hurting customers.
Whatever you decide upon, you'll be f***ed in a year or so.

Get a Juniper M7i.  For your traffic needs, it's definitely fast enough
- and the CPU to handle the BGP updates is much faster.

gert

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Gert Doering - Munich, Germany
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