[f-nsp] [Fwd: Foundry XMR/MLX Experience - Update]

[Jens Brey]

FYI ;)


-------- Forwarded Message --------
> From: Robert Boyle <robert at tellurian.com>
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Foundry XMR/MLX Experience - Update
> Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:13:46 -0400
> 
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> In December 2006, I asked for input from people on their experience 
> with Foundry since we were leaning toward them for our new core 
> router standard for our current backbone upgrade cycle. About 50 
> people replied and asked me to update them with my choice and 
> information I gathered since they were also considering Foundry. We 
> also looked at Juniper and Cisco's offerings, but they weren't 
> competitive in the price/performance ratio and Juniper's annual 
> maintenance fees were astronomical and their sales people arrogant. 
> The feedback on Force10 from people who said they were also looking 
> at them was that their software was not mature or stable enough and 
> their financial picture was questionable while the hardware per port 
> cost was higher than Foundry. I never contacted Force10 based on the 
> premilinary feedback I received from their actual users. Everyone who 
> actually used Foundry loved their boxes. Two people said stay away 
> from Foundry, but upon further inquiry, one had not actually 
> personally used any Foundry gear and the other had a problem, but 
> never contacted Foundry support for help. Foundry openly admits that 
> they had some quality problems in the past with certain older 
> hardware models which had a bad ASIC production run and those issues 
> have been addressed and the customers made whole. That certainly 
> seems to be the case based on the feedback I received. I am very 
> pleased with the current generation of hardware. We also liked the 
> fact that the Foundry CLI language is basically IOS with a Santa 
> Clara accent which minimizes staff training requirements. We love our 
> Cisco gear, but it just isn't price competitive for high density and 
> line rate without any oversubscription. I also don't like the 
> imminent, uncertain, and nebulous maybe/maybe-not IOS feature-set 
> code-base split between the 7600 and 6500 series platforms. We 
> evaluated a Foundry MLX, but we decided to purchase an XMR which is 
> the big brother of the MLX. The main difference between the MLX and 
> the XMR is that the XMR will take 1 million routes in the CAM vs. 
> 512k for the MLX. The XMR also has a higher limit on the number of 
> BGP peers and it has more RAM. Both models run the exact same code. 
> The XMR will also so MPLS and IPV6 routing (in hardware) without any 
> special feature licenses. You buy the box and you can do anything it 
> is capable of. I like that way of doing business too. Our evaluation 
> period was flawless. We didn't run into any bugs and the box just 
> worked as advertised. In fact, I copied and pasted a Cisco config to 
> get the box up and running and I think I only had to change 3 or 4 
> lines. We told Foundry we also wanted 100Mbit SM SFP support and BFD 
> support and they were both included in the new release of the 
> software. It works with ISIS, BGP, and SNMP without any issues at 
> all. We have been very pleased. They work with any SFP optics 
> although the official position is that only factory optics are 
> supported. We just purchased four XMR routers which we will be 
> deploying shortly. The MLX which has been in production for almost 3 
> months has had zero issues interoperating with our Cisco gear 
> including 7200s and 6500s speaking ISIS and BGP. Foundry's support 
> team goes above and beyond. They have been extremely helpful with any 
> questions and they really want to make sure their customers are happy 
> and willing to recommend their products. I have been converted. We 
> are also planning to roll out MPLS once the routers are in place. POS 
> cards are out now too in OC12/OC48 and OC192. The chassis is 40GE and 
> 100GE capable and will support the cards once they are released.
> 
> 
> Here are some quotes which I received:
> 
> 
> "We're looking at replacing our current routers as well. I'm currently
> looking at Force10 (E600), Foundry (XMR), and Juniper (MX960). Since
> we're primarily a commodity internet shop, we don't need MPLS today,
> which is the only reason I'm considering Force10.
> We use Foundry for L2 today and have had great luck using 3rd party
> SFPs. We buy all our SFPs from Calix (OEM'd Finisar)."
> 
> 
> "Like every vendor, Foundry has it's quirks but they're putting real
> efforts into getting things handled. We've worked closely with them
> for the past 3 years and helped them understand better how to move
> from enterprise support into the ISP market.
> They're still doing a little catch up in code but getting there pretty
> fast. I'd venture that by the end of 2007, they will have every bit of
> feature support you could find from juniper or cisco. Many of the most
> important things for even a large network are there now and are being
> beaten to hell and back in various people's networks. The end result
> is that the bugs that make it in there are getting ferreted out
> pretty fast."
> 
> 
> "A summarization of the answers you receive would be great. We have a few
> of the MLX16 and MLX8's in our lab right now, but not in the same
> capacity that your using them, so I can't comment on the number of BGP
> peers and how they handle it. We're testing MPLS currently, mainly VPLS
> functions, and soon will be doing several gigs of IP video with
> Multicast, and hopefully MSDP and Anycast RP. Currently, they don't have
> BFD support for either OSPF or IS-IS, but our SE is checking on the
> software release dates. Also, we just got in some Ineoquest boxes that
> can generate/monitor 10Gb of IP video, so we can at least put some
> stress on our links."
> (BFD is now supported in 3.3)
> 
> 
> "I don't know much about Foundry other than I see them installed in racks
> semi frequently (more and more these days).  We're taking on a project in
> Q1 to upgrade or replace all of our Cisco Cataylst switches.  We're going
> to do a full market eval, but from what I've seen so far I highly doubt
> we'll be sticking with Cisco Cataylst switches (they're too big and bulky
> and just not very Service Provider focused)."
> 
> 
> "MLX should work.  XMR will go slightly farther (more CAM for 
> routes). Foundry will have different bugs from Cisco."
> 
> 
> "I cannot speak exactly for the MLX, however we have used Foundry gear
> for several years now and have seen little to no problems. In our
> network we have NetIron40Gs and BigIron RX8s in the core. They have
> supported so far several million routes of BGP across 15 eBGP peers.
> Scaling the number of peers should not be a problem since on the MLX
> you have more TCAM for supporting a huge number of routes and peers
> on each line card. We have also found that 3rd party SFPs and XFPs
> have not been a problem at all unless they are Cisco. Since I do not
> run ISIS, I cannot comment on that at all, we run OSPF and have found
> no problems there either. Hope it all works out for you."
> 
> 
> "********* uses XMR's in their core network (practically identical to MLX)"
> 
> 
> "As Bevan indicated, we haven't pushed these too hard yet.  We did push
> them with a SmartBits analyser early on to test some specific QoS things
> (which came up clean), but haven't stressed them in production yet.
> One gotcha is that the code doesn't support hit-less software upgrades
> yet - the newly released code supports hitless upgrades for quite a few
> features, but not for MPLS.  It's coming - just not there yet.
> We're not using them to take multiple full BGP views in a transit-like
> configuration, so your mileage may vary."
> 
> 
> "The hardware is pretty stable, we've only had a handful of hardware
> swaps in 3 years of use.  The software is about as stable as any
> software... although they tend to move on to new feature versions
> rather quickly and don't necessarily have deep support on older
> versions.  That being said, they will roll a bug fix into a version
> you need if you request it.
> Their TAC is so-so.  Sometimes you'll get a great tech and sometimes
> you'll get a lazy one.  If you work their system you'll get what you
> need.  Also, their SE's are very involved and tend to be dedicated
> professionals who will do whatever it takes.
> We got the MG8's very early in the product life-cycle.  At one point
> we had a strange problem.  Foundry sent the product engineer to
> ********* to troubleshoot the issue in person.
> We just had a hardware line card fail.  While the TAC didn't RMA it
> properly, the SE/Sales team saw that things weren't getting handled
> properly and our Salesman flew the replacement down (we're in *****,
> they're in San Jose) personally to make sure we had it in time.
> When we decided to go with Foundry, their service was a key element of
> our decision.  They've overall lived up to the hype."
> 
> 
> So far we have also been very pleased. I'll send out another update 
> once we get our XMRs deployed and MPLS enabled.
> 
> -Robert
> 
> 
> Tellurian Networks - Global Hosting Solutions Since 1995
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>