[f-nsp] Experiences with the performance of Foundy Bigiron 8000 VS a Cisco 12000 & redundancy question

[Todd Christell]

we have a metro ethernet network with a gig backbone and 45 nodes
distributed over the city; all foundry.  works great.  the only cisco
routers were a couple of 7507s (dual rsp8s, vip450s)for our bgp ds3 feeds.
 both routers were running about 45% cpu utilization.  one died one
evening and we substituted a BI4000 at a fifth the cost of the 7507 and it
has been running ever since at about 1% cpu.  after that we decomissioned
the second 7507 and replaced with a foundry.  i think that i would
recommend a netiron 4000 or 8000 instead of the bigiron.  the bigiron
series is more enterprise and the netiron is more nsp.  it has faster
processor, more memory etc. and doesn't cost that much more, especially
compared to a gsr.

tlc

Todd Christell
Network Manager
SpringNet
www.springnet.net
417.831.8688
Key fingerprint = 4F26 A0B4 5AAD 7FCA 48DD 7F40 A57E 9235 5202 D508


> Hello my dear colleagues,
>
> first of all let me say: yes - I know this is a Cisco-only mailing list
> but my question is directly connected to Cisco so please give me a
> chance. I'm CCing the foundry-nsp list here and hope that my cross post
> doesn't disturb anyone but will help to find people who have experience
> with cisco as well as foundry gear.
>
>
> We're trying to increase our redundancy and I'm trying to decide whether
> it is better to buy a Foundry Bigiron 8000 in addition to our existing
> Cisco GSR8/40 or if - maybe - a second Cisco would be the better choice.
>
> At the moment we have a GSR8/40 that is full redundant and utilizes 2
> GRPs with 256 MB ram and we're using GE-GBIC-SC-B line cards and they
> match our requirements which are to handle about 200 megabits of traffic
> AND to sustain a hard (d)dos-attack which might be up to a gigabit of
> fragmented traffic. I'm talking about ipv4 traffic of course which will
> be routed in hardware. I know that ipv6 is a software-only thing on our
> "old" line cards but for the moment that's okay.
> Regarding the current discussion of the growing bgp tables: I know that
> we will sooner or later run into problems regarding the memory.. but
> that's not the topic right now.
>
> In order to increase our redundancy we'd like to install a second
> router. My first thought was to buy another GSR 8/40 but this time with
> a GRP-B that has 512MB of ram but in connection with the required line
> card(s) this will be pretty expensive.
>
> A colleague just showed me his Foundry BigIron that was equipped with a
> B4GMR4 M4 Management Module that carries 512MB ram and 4 gigabit ports.
> [by the way: with 4 full feeds only about 40% of the memory are in use.
> Looks like they have a better software than Cisco]
>>From the economic perspective the bigiron 8000 is very interesting:
>> costs
> only about a third of the Cisco and does even have 4 Gigabit ports! He
> told me that the router does "line speed" and can sustain dos-attacks of
> more than a gigabit without any problems but that was all he knew. The
> datasheets on Foundry's website are more the marketing like stuff.
>
> by the way: the gsr as well as the bigiron can both do VRRP. Will both
> implementations work together in one vrrp-installation?
>
> ==> Does anyone have a real experience with Foundry Bigiron-gear and
> know how good/bad it runs compared to Cisco.
>
>
> I'm asking myself right now whether to buy another Cisco which is good
> since I know how to administer the gear and you can find a external
> technician easily. We could also exchange line cards between both
> routers. A big CON is that it is exactly the same gear we have right now
> and if there's an ios fault most probably both machines will fail.
>
>
> What do you think?
> First of all: can the foundry handle the load and second: what's the
> better solution in order to increase our redundancy?
>
> Thanks for your help in advance,
> Gunther
>
>