[c-nsp] Is a 6500 still the best choice?

[Phil Mayers]

On 04/26/2011 03:23 PM, Leigh Harrison wrote:

> Main feature we use is MPLS and we need 10G port density, so I'm looking

When you say "MPLS" can you be more specific? L3VPN? EoMPLS? VPLS?

> towards an ASR 9000, but then as we need Layer 2 services, I'm swayed
> back to the 6500E's.  They'll be used for both aggregation and direct
> access.

I don't know the ASR9k at all, so can't comment on that. People speak 
well of them though.

> I have been pondering the Nexus 7K's looking towards the future and 100G
> coming onto our network, but they lack the MPLS support at the moment.

Likewise. We're watching N7k MPLS with a keen eye. Didn't cisco recently 
announce the phase1 (layer 3) stuff?

> Is a 6500 still the best bang for your buck or does the lack of anything
> over 10G ports hold it back?

Talk to your cisco account manager about sup2T. It's supposed to be out 
shortly, and offers a fair (not brilliant) improvement in 10g densities 
on the 6500 platform, as well as 40G and 100G roadmap and a bunch of 
incremental improvements (better netflow, vpls, IPv6 uRPF, faster CPUs)

Other platforms may still be better; but sup720 is very shortly going to 
be "2nd tier" 6500 I suspect, so I'd compare something new with 
something new(ish). Of course it'll be brand new and riddled with bugs, 
so...

FWIF we use a smattering of 10g on our sup720 platforms with the 6716 
cards; it's currently a pricey 10g platform :o(