[c-nsp] Brocade Vs Cisco

[Keegan Holley]

I think your original question was about carrier ethernet gear.  I have also
had some bad experiences with foundry/brocade equipment.  Cisco's metro-e
offering leaves something to be desired as well though.  I actually went
with ciena switches and mac-in-mac or PBB encapsulation.  It's much more
robust than vpls/L2vpn (at least until T-MPLS is standardized) and is
simpler to implement and supported on lower cost gear.  Most use vpls or
l2vpn in their core to make use of existing routers.  I would recommend
ciena (if you can get over the "nortel-speak" command line) for an edge
metro deployment.  Brocade is better off in a DC environment delivering more
generic ethernet services.  Just my 2 cents.

Keegan


2011/8/11 Bradley Williamson <bwilliamson at eatel.com>

> Does anyone have any horror stories or gotcha's  concerning Brocade? What
> about success stories?
>
> We are looking at Brocade, Cisco, and Juniper for a couple of upcoming
> projects and I am familiar with both Cisco and Juniper, but not so much with
> Brocade. We have a few of their small switches in our network, but that’s
> about the extent of my experience.
>
> We want to build an MPLS core capable of delivering triple-play services
> and as part of that, we will be building our a MetroE network to provide
> ethernet backhaul for mobile providers and also deliver L2VPN and L3VPN
> services to our business customers.
>
> I am a little skeptical of Brocade. I just do not understand how they can
> provide the performance they claim at half the price of the other guys.
>
> Any insight/advice would be appreciated.
>
> Brad
>
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