[c-nsp] Cisco 8000

[Nikolas Geyer]

NCS5500 is Broadcom StrataDNX family (Jericho), Juniper QFX5k is StrataXGS family (Trident/Tomahawk), the platforms aren’t really comparable as while they share some similarities on paper they are very different beasts in the reality.

The NCS5500 would be positioned more towards the QFX10k in market position (QFX/PTX10k and NCS5500 are around the same price point on $/Mbit port cost) but the Juniper silicon will blow the Jericho out of the water for most things with the exclusion of eTCAM Cisco plumbed into some of the NCS.

This new 8000 series will, imo, sit at a tier higher than NCS5500 with the NCS being the “cheap and cheerful but somewhat restricted and quirky” merchant silicon box, and the 8000 having the merchant silicon restrictions removed.

Will be interesting to see how market penetration plays out beyond the hyperscalers.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 12, 2019, at 9:08 AM, James Jun <james at towardex.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 02:00:21PM +0000, Drew Weaver wrote:
>> This is a silly question but why call it the 8000 if it's supposed to be the successor to the 9900?
>> 
> 
> But it's not.  
> 
> 8000 is more or less "successor" to NCS 5500 than ASR9K.  But in all seriousness, 8000 seems like Cisco's counter-answer to Juniper QFX10K/PE chip.
> 
> NCS 5500 sounds like it will continue to remain as Cisco's merchant silicon networking offering for customers that want it.  So comparable to Juniper's QFX5K line up but with way more functional buffer sizing?
> 
> 8000 sounds like "low cost per bit, scale up, mid-level features on Cisco owned chip" targeted to compete against QFX10K/new PTX.
> 
> ASR9K would remain as run-to-completion high touch platform.  In fact, we've already been informed by our account team that new A99 400GE cards will be shipping soon.
> 
> 
> James
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-nsp mailing list  cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
> archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/