[c-nsp] ASR920 - ISR4431

[Jeremy Bresley]

On 6/4/2015 1:19 AM, sthaug at nethelp.no wrote:
>> No more �in-fight  BUs� :) Now all SP products in one organization.
> Good start, but:
>
> Unfortunately, that only works in so far as customers agree with Cisco
> about what are "SP products". I have seen plenty of cases of products
> being used, rather successfully, in a different segment/function than
> what Cisco targeted with the product.
>
> Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug at nethelp.no
>
ASR1K vs ASR9K is a perfect example of this.  ASR9Ks are an SP box. 
ASR1Ks are aimed at large enterprise customers as an edge router. But if 
you want a couple 10G ports, you can get an ASR9001 for a few 10s of 
thousands of dollars less than an ASR1K (the numbers on this might be 
better now that they have the 6 port ten-gig card for the ASR1K, but a 
year ago when we were buying those didn't exist).

The only feature we use on our ASR1Ks that doesn't exist on the 9Ks is 
NBAR.  Which as pure Internet edge routers, doesn't really buy us much 
anyways.  In exchange we get rock solid BGP with really fast 
convergence, good Netflow output, and enough 10G ports for what we need 
for the next year or two (with an open MPA slot for a 2/4 port card if 
we need more.)

Our account team was actively trying to convince us that we really 
wanted to stick with the "enterprise" product rather than getting the SP 
one.  Yes XR has a learning curve.  But so did NX-OS, and that wasn't 
enough reason for us not to learn it and go forward with the 7Ks and 5Ks 
several years ago.

As an aside, I've been using Cisco products in ways that Cisco 
absolutely didn't intend for years.  Projects like using a 6400 to 
aggregate customers coming in off Ethernet ports on Alcatel SONET MUXes 
over OC3 to the 6400 to give them Internet service.  As far as I know, 
that product stayed in place for several years after I left that job 
with a cable MSO.  The Alcatel side melted down occasionally, but the 
6400s kept chugging along like typical Cisco SP gear.

Quite often, Cisco is their own worst competitor.  And don't get me 
started on licensing, that's would be a multi-page diatribe about how 
NOT to do things.  :-)

Jeremy "TheBrez" Bresley
brez at brezworks.com