[c-nsp] Huawei instead of Cisco

[Mauritz Lewies]

Hi

We've had very similar experience with Huawei and not just related to the kit mentioned in the thread thus far.
But the cost and end-to-end cover from a single provider does make them a pain in the sides of most competitors.

Has anyone had any experience with ZTE? 

Regards,

Mauritz Lewies

email: mo at three6five.com
mobile: +27 83 647 4901
Skype Phone:  +27 11 08 365 02
three6five network solutions
www.three6five.com

On 15 May 2010, at 6:07 PM, Pavel Stan wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> 
> My first advice regarding S9300 or any other Huawei box is not to trust
> any lab test they might propose to you,  but get one demo box and place
> it in the target live environment, if possible.
> 
> In particular for S9300, it's a surprisingly well done
> non-oversubscribed 10G IP-switch with hardware MPLS support, but no
> match for 76xx, so be sure to ask for a much lower price. S9300 is done
> using technology from the NE40 series ( not the NE40-E / NE80-E, who is
> positioned on same level with 7600 and also has the LPUF and LPUG cards
> that try to compete with ES+ cards ).
> 
> Depending on your desired position on your customer's network, things
> could go well with this box for running L2 carrier services, as EoMPLS /
> TE looks good on them. For IPv4/v6 routing things get nasty, even if
> they have LC that support 512k FIB, QPPB, enough LFIB space. The
> problems that you should lookup with these things are the CPU processing
> limits, as it seems that the MPU, as they call it, is somehow too week
> for holding even a decent flow of control-plane traffic, so you might
> want to keep things simple there.
> 
> 
>> From the operational part, you must pray that you don't need to interact
> with their post-sales support team, as they are unable to help you on
> complex problems or give you info on "what happens with this packet
> inside the box" questions. They tend to escalate this problems to their
> over-worked suicidal R&D guys.
> 
> Documentation is useless most of the times and looks like it was google
> translated from mandarin.
> 
> For the software, try to get them to give you an image that has GA
> status with at least one maintenance release ( for ex. SRD2 ) as they
> try to push newer feature releases on to small customers for beta-testing.
> 
> 
> Don't trust anything they tell you but test it yourself, You would be
> surprised to find that simple things you would take for granted on
> Cisco/Juniper/Alcatel/etc are not implemented the way you expected.
> 
> Also, what if hear from happy GSM/WDM/SDH Huawei owners is not relevant
> for IP/Ethernet/MPLS/Carrier Service, as they are totally different BUs
> with different experience and strategy.
> 
> On the commercial side, they will do "ANYTHING" to sign with you, as
> they are desperately trying to extend their datacom portfolio to more
> than the current China Telecom, Asia and other banana republics
> customers that they currently have.
> 
> 
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> --
> Pavel Stan
> pavel.stan at pavel.pro
> 
> 
> Felix Nkansah 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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