[e-nsp] Extremeware images

[Bruno Lebayle]

Adam Rothschild wrote:
> On 2007-06-20-18:32:12, Jo Rhett <jrhett at svcolo.com> wrote:
>> "Availability of support" in particular competent support is exactly
>> why you shouldn't continue bothering with Extreme.  Cisco has a lot
>> of incompetent support, but competent support does exist and can be
>> found in their organizations.

As a former Cisco customer - ah, the nightmare of Catalysts 5500s with 
SPT and HSRP, where we suffered many times full network failures where 
the only hope is to disconnect fiber ports until the load goes down, the 
exotic and frenetic CatOS plus IOS versioning - I fully agree that no 
customer support is of an acceptable quality nowadays, whatever the 
manufacturer - we have a Juniper experience, too. And this is not 
Netherlands-bashing ;-)
The only way to have good support is 1) to build the competence 
internally if possible - training is welcome - and 2) find someone 
really smart and reliable in a supplier's enterprise.

> Indeed, Extreme doesn't have the support structure of a larger vendor
> such as Cisco, though I'm not entirely convinced this is a Bad Thing.
> 
> I've found the Extreme TAC surprisingly nimble, and pleasant to deal
> with, on the occasions I've had to contact them.  Reporting software
> issues and obtaining custom incremental/engineering builds was merely
> a matter of the support tech shouting over to his cube-mate. :-)
> 
>> We have more than a dozen crucial BGP-announcement-affecting bugs  
>> that Extreme doesn't have the vaguest clue how to solve, including  
>> the inability to prevent re-announcement of a default route even with  
>> an explicit filter denying it.  No self-respecting NSP should bother  
>> with the wallowing shell of a company that Extreme is today.
> 
> I'd agree that using Extreme devices for L3 is a poor design design,
> and one which needs to be quickly remedied.  Some of their newer

Strange to say this ! Especially on an Extreme mailing list ... Well, 
our network fully relies on ExtremeWareXOS at L3 including BGP for our 
connection to the local MAN, and we are very happy with this. We are 
using ACLs, Clear-Flow, VRRP, RIP and did not face any problem when 
deploying.

Cheers,
Bruno.
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