[c-nsp] Cisco 8000

[Mark Tinka]

On 11/Dec/19 19:40, Saku Ytti wrote:
> https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/routers/8000-series-routers/index.html#~product-series

So how ominous - we met Cisco and Juniper in the last couple of weeks to
re-assess a core router refresh (our CRS-X boxes are still going strong,
but the 100Gbps line cards on those things cost a whole heap).

So while I was e-mailing my Cisco AM team yesterday, I went to their web
site to look at what we discussed earlier per their suggestion; the
NCS5500. And while looking at it, I find out about Silicon One, which
then sends me to the 8000 series routers.

I quickly notice that the NCS6000 is no longer on that list of "core
routers".

To be honest, I'm not sure whether I trust Cisco's long-term vision
about their core routers. The CRS-X, which still has plenty of juice, is
being abandoned, even though I think it still has at least 10 more years
in it. Then it was the NCS5000 they were proposing for a decent core to
compete against Juniper and Arista. Now I'm seeing the 8000, which uses
their own custom silicon and is likely to contradict their message of
pushing the NCS5000 as a core router, which is a Broadcom-based router.

Last thing I want is to find myself less than 5 years into a box only to
be told that they aren't feeling it anymore, which is what happened when
we picked up the CRS-X back in 2014 :-\...

Meanwhile, I'm told that the NCS6000 is still available, but only for
customers that need multi-chassis and that. I mean, in 2020, how many of
those are still around, if not about 3 or 4?

Mark.