[c-nsp] [j-nsp] juniper trinity

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 12:54:40PM -0700, Marlon Duksa wrote:
> This Trio or Trinity, whatever they call it is internally grown
> technology...a combination if EZChip + I-chip functionality.
> 
> Plus I don't think it is a good strategy for Juniper to use third party
> vendors as this will not give them differentiation...

I've heard people make this argument, but it is absurd. The only thing
EZChip is used for on the MX is basic Ethernet framing and MAC lookup.
No doubt it was much cheaper and easier for Juniper to use an off the
shelf chip for this than to spin their own just to do this. To go from
there to claiming that the rest of the forwarding/queuing/etc will be
the same as a Cisco platform is absolutely insane, the only thing they
have in common is the Ethernet frame. It would be really sad if Juniper
(or anyone else) could be pressured into not using the best/cheapest
component for the job because the FUD department can somehow convince
people that there is no differentiation.

Of course, the next time Juniper designed a new ASIC it would probably
make sense for them to add that functionality into the new chip to
reduce costs and simplify the architecture.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
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