[f-nsp] NetIron MLX Experience..

[Eric Helm]

Richard A Steenbergen wrote:

> Point being, for everything in life there is a tradeoff. The new Foundry 
> platforms are actually very interesting boxes, worth taking a good hard 
> look at by anyone, but at the end of the day boxes that move a bazillion 
> bits under simple lab conditions are a dime a dozen. It is software that 
> makes the product, this is something that folks like Cisco and Juniper 
> understand but that most other vendors do not. That said, if your network 
> is simple enough and you don't need all of those interesting features (and 
> if you have to ask or hell if you are even reading this list at all you 
> probably don't), the MLX/XMR may be the box for you.
> 

You make a great point about basically routing hardware becoming a
commodity and the software being the real driver for cost and value.
This is really the heart of my original question, and the reason I asked
about people's 'experience' with the Foundry MLX product.
We've used BigIrons and NetIrons in the past for some routing stuff and
were disappointed with the troubleshooting tools including lack of good
protocol debugging. The MLX looks promising and definitely has a great
price point, but it may be worth the extra money for a Cisco or Juniper
solution to gain the extra features and especially troubleshooting
capabilities.

/Eric