[c-nsp] Huawei instead of Cisco

[Judah Scott]

Haha.  I know personally that operating VRP is oh so painful
(CX-series, though I assume this will translate).

Their lack of operational experience in real networks is made apparent
by many bugs when things don't go "smoothly."  How about the fact that
in the version I was using, despite setting MTU on RSVP LSPs, it
simply always sends ADSPEC MTU 1500?  Or maybe the fact that doing a
shutdown on an LSP doesn't seem to have an effect (it keeps signalling
or at least believes that it has signalled and the LSP is up).  How
about the fact that the router just crashes as it approaches running
out of memory.  The fact that 'display fib' shows what I guess to be a
copy of the rib, but 'display fib 1' does actually show a fib.  Or
maybe the fact that if you run a config script on the box it doesn't
show the output but it still cycles through all the contexts (very
slowly), one is much better off copy-pasting in thousands of lines
than executing a script; at least when it fails you can actually see
what that little arrow is pointing to (instead of the black spaces it
does when you execute a script).

I could seriously go on for hours.

BUT, if you are just planning on doing something simple with the box
I'm sure it can handle it as long as you don't mind replacing some
keyboards and monitors damaged by disgruntled operators.  The basics
are covered well and going through "test cases" you can easily prove
to yourself this box is capable.  When you go for testing they may
bring a car-full of engineers to work out your specific issues.  They
will also use tricks and customize their paf files for specific test
cases.  Getting your hands on it for a while to actually test some
failure scenarios on your own, or what happens when things don't
behave so nicely in the network, may tell you otherwise.

Another thing to add is that Huawei has come a long way in the last
couple years and I expect them to become much better in the next
couple years.  At the moment though, so painful and very buggy.

-J Scott


On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Felix Nkansah <felixnkansah at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A telco customer is evaluating tender proposals for next-generation Internet
> POPs planned for deployment this year.
>
> Among the bidders is Huawei, who has a very beautiful technical proposal
> document with great-looking design/platforms.
>
> They are positioning their Quidway S9300 terabit routing switch platform to
> compete (the equivalent of the Cisco ASR 9000).
>
> The customer would have loved to go with Cisco 7609s, but is contemplating
> Huawei's because of their low prices.
>
> I know Huawei is doing a good job in mobile switching and access networks,
> but do you know how well they do with their products in data/IP/BGP/MPLS
> solutions?
>
> How about the maturity of their software? Are there any hidden operational
> costs too? What is the total cost of ownership when compared to Cisco's?
>
> Thanks. Felix
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