[c-nsp] recommendation for upgrade-paths pls

[Nick Hilliard]

On 20/12/2012 02:54, Harald Kapper wrote:
> we're currently on 7206VXR with NPE-G2 and NPE-G1 on our network.
> 
> We need the following main features: IPv6+v4 dual-stack, Gigabit and
> multi-Gigabit speeds for our upstreams, full BGP-tables,
> broadband-aggregation (currently built on lots of C2851 and could be
> kept there for the time being) and the usual network-management-stuff.
> 
> We're planning for some upgrades. V6-dualstack is already in place and
> works, but for multigigabit-links and ddos-resilience we do lack some
> power.
> 
> I'd be happy to receive recommendations whether to go the ASR-1000 route
> or skip this and go directoy to 760x-systems (using which RSP/SUP?).
> 
> We do not care about ATM or similar things, we're an ethernet only shop,
> except for the DSL-access-services we do offer.

Hi Harald,

I think you need to take a step back from looking at kit and consider your
network design more carefully.  For this, you need to start out not with a
list of features that you want, but with a network design which will
deliver the services that your customers need.  So rather than talking
about whether to upgrade from a vxr+npe-g2 to a c7600, you probably want to
think about what's the best way to handle your broadband termination
service, how many customer edge ports do you need and how many peering /
transit sessions you need and of what speed.

Once you do this, you can then create a network with separate devices for
each service.  So your broadband aggregation should probably be moved from
c2800 to npe-g1, or if that's too small then you might want to consider an
asr1000;  if you want a small number of 10G transit / peering sessions to
your network, then ASR9001 might be good.  If you need lots of GE edge
ports, then depending on profile maybe you could do this on a shared 10G
router port on say an ASR9k downlinking into an me3600, or if they are all
very high bandwidth, you might want to look at a 20x1G card for the asr9k.

It really depends on your need.  I'd steer clear of spending money on
c7600/c6500.  From what I can tell, they are not cisco's primary
development platforms at this stage, and it's likely that the asr9k will
provide a much longer service lifetime.