[c-nsp] ASR 1k vs 9k as a non-transit BGP router with full tables?

[Mark Tinka]

On 3/Aug/17 20:22, Tim Densmore wrote:

> Yeah, this is definitely a piece of the puzzle for some of us.  So,
> discussion about the differences between the various RPs aside, what's
> the real world experience with the asr100x and the 9001?  It sounds like
> BGP convergence is better on the 9001, but has the convergence on the
> 1000 been a major issue for folks?  Is there a common case where a
> router with an RP2 and an  ESP10 or ESP40 is totally inadequate and the
> 9001 is just crushing it (or vice versa)?  I'm thinking of standard
> stuff like a few BGP feeds, IGP, ACLs, QoS and MPLS L2/L3 VPNs.  We've
> been pretty happy with the asr1004 as a platform, but we're not doing
> anything super cutting edge with it, either.

We use the ASR1002-X for low-capacity exchange points, and ASR9001's or
MX480's (used to be MX80 and MX104) for peering at high-capacity
exchange points.

While we like the ASR1000 platform, it's not the best for high-density
Ethernet (which is generally the type of environment your peering nodes
live in). So it makes sense to move to either the ASR9000 or MX
platforms if a site starts to scale up.

We do use the ASR1006's for PoP's that need to support non-Ethernet
hand-offs to customers, but these are few and far between.

As an overall platform, the ASR1000 is very good. We really like it,
which is why we rely on the CSR1000v (IOS XE) as our RR. We've had no
BGP performance issues worth nothing on this platform, either on the RP2
or CSR1000v. So I'm confident that RP3 would be a dream.

We don't believe in having large routers (physically) for peering or
upstream interconnects, especially since we have plenty of PoP's around
the world where we perform these activities. The ASR9001 is a much
better platform than the MX80 or MX104, which is why we've ended up
using the MX480 as our new peering and upstream router for places that
were previously running the MX80 or MX104. I don't see us using the
chassis-based ASR9000 routers in the near-term, as the ASR9001 still has
some ways to go.

Mark.