[c-nsp] ME3600 migration to something with more 10 gig ports

[Aaron]

Thanks again for all your insights and feedback.  I've tried to bring your
comments all together here below...

I'm revisiting this thread please since I am still looking to replace my
Cisco Me3600's in my distribution layer of my network.  They only have (2)
10 gig ports and I need more 10 gig.  I want all mpls l2vpn/l3vpn
capabilities that I at least have on my current ME3600's.

I would like to add that (6) ports 10 gig may not be enough for us to scale
to the future.  We would like more than 6.  If I LAG (2) 10's to my OLT/FTTH
Chassis and go east and west with 20 gig each direction, then I've used up
all (6) 10 gig's.  I think this rules out the ASR920's.  

--------------------------------------------------------------
About the Juniper ACX5000...

Mark mentioned - "Juniper's ACX5000 units are multi-rate systems. Only
problem is there are Broadcom chipsets in there. Okay for most applications,
but you may hit fundamental issues that software can't rectify. That is why
we dropped our consideration for them."...... " The ACX5000 was a reasonable
attempt, but that Broadcom chipset is a liability. As always, Juniper
continue to drop the ball on this...."

James mentioned - " Yep, I mean it's a QFX 5100.  Cisco ASR 9xx are
certainly more better suited IMO for edge applications."
--------------------------------------------------------------
About the Juniper EX4550...

Mark mentioned - " The EX4550 falls very short of that re: full IP/MPLS
capabilities."
Raphael mentioned - "If l3vpn is your case you can consider ex4550 (with
caution). I use them as PE with some kind of success. But... there is some
limitations you should be aware of :  
- the cpu is slow, even the snmp process can kill the control plane if there
is too much polling
- mpls : l2circuit is working, but not l2vpn, nor vpls. l3vpn is working but
the number of routing instance is limited (around 40 if I remember
correctly. And the big one : no local leaking between routing instance. Very
annoying.
- snmp counter on sub interface (but there are workaround)
--------------------------------------------------------------
About the Juniper QFX5100...

Richard mentioned - " My experience with that platform and 14.1 has been
very unpleasant.  13.2 does not support MPLS PE."
--------------------------------------------------------------
About the Cisco ASR903...

I'm interested in this.  What do y'all think about this?  It seems that this
is a scalable box with its dual power, dual cpu, 6 slot with various
Ethernet card options.  I wonder what a starter box would cost (chassis, one
cpu, one power supply, one (8) port 10 gig module) ?



Any other comparable products out there y'all know of?

Aaron



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Tinka [mailto:mark.tinka at seacom.mu] 
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 10:02 AM
To: Aaron; cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] ME3600 migration to something with more 10 gig ports



On 13/Jul/15 16:50, Aaron wrote:
>  
>
> I'm thinking about Cisco ASR920's for (4) 10 gig ports and several (1) 
> gig ports.  Would this be good ?

The ASR920 24-port comes with 4x 10Gbps ports. For me, these aren't nearly
enough if you want to sell 10Gbps services to customers.

I'd generally use 2x 10Gbps ports for my uplink fibre. While Cisco believe
the two other 10Gbps ports can be used to address customers (and they can),
I wouldn't do it simply because the scale isn't there. I'd need more 10Gbps
port density for it to make any sense.

I'm afraid that if you're looking for anything with dense 10Gbps ports for
customer services with features, form factor and price points of the
ASR920/ME3600X from Cisco, you'll be hard-pressed.

>  
>
> What are some comparable Juniper products that would fit here ?  Is 
> Juniper better in that area ?

Juniper's ACX5000 units are multi-rate systems. Only problem is there are
Broadcom chipsets in there. Okay for most applications, but you may hit
fundamental issues that software can't rectify. That is why we dropped our
consideration for them.

Mark.