[f-nsp] Is there much to recommend an MLX?

[Tomasz Szewczyk]

Hi,

In my opinion the 6500 are targeted to big LANs and/or corporate 
networks. All the features and modules available on this platform cans 
be used in such networks. In our case we have quite old 6500 (Sup720) in 
metro network (pure L2 switching). The XMRs we have in WAN (country 
wide). We have MPLS running on XMRs.
Some time ago Cisco made some changes to MPLS implementation, but I 
didn't test it. However, I think the 6500/7600 has major conceptual 
(hardware) limitations - New features requires module replacement 
(Supervisor and/or line cards).
The MLX/XMR platform is good for ISPs. At the moment the software is not 
so advanced as JunOS, but new features simply comes with software (FPGA) 
updates. The platform is more flexible - Foundry assured us that it is 
even 100Gbps ready.
So - if you need "feature-rich" platform for corporate network and you 
are Cisco centric - it would be easier for you to buy 6500, but if 
you're looking for efficient and flexible routing/switching platform 
Foundry will be good for you.

> From what someone told me I gather the XMR/MLX is more of a router 
> than a layer3 switch (like the 6500/7600)
>
Yes indeed - on XMR/MLS you don't have to enable L2 switching. However 
it uses virtual interface to make IP subinterfaces.
>
> Essentially what i’m after is just someone who has had good exposure 
> to both vendors and can give me an honest non biased opinion on what 
> they like and dislike about the XMR/MLX’s compared to the Cisco offerings.
>
My summary is - Cisco for corporate LAN and XMR/MLX for WAN/ISP networks.

Best Regards

Tomek

> Cheers
>
> Ben
>
> *From:* foundry-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net 
> [mailto:foundry-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] *On Behalf Of *Jason Evans
> *Sent:* Friday, 5 December 2008 1:30 AM
> *To:* Dan Pinkard
> *Cc:* foundry-nsp at puck.nether.net
> *Subject:* Re: [f-nsp] Is there much to recommend an MLX?
>
> We have 8 in XMR's in production at this point, some running hundreds 
> of BGP sessions, and our pain has been minimal. There was a pretty bad 
> software bug that caused us to send full tables to peers so we were 
> tripping max-prefixes, but it was addressed. I think we've had 1 line 
> card fail in the past 6 months, so not bad.
>
> I would definitely recommend the XMR for its price/performance point. 
> However, be very careful with what you try to do with a SuperX :-). 
> Don't mix SuperX with BGP if you can help it.
>
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Dan Pinkard <DPinkard at accessline.com 
> <mailto:DPinkard at accessline.com>> wrote:
>
>
> Time and time again I've gotten anecdotal recommendations that Foundry 
> should only be used for layer 2. I would like to open that up to a 
> wider audience with a perhaps more directed question:
>
> What is there about the MLX platform that helps it compare to the 
> available offerings from Juniper/Cisco/etc? Why did you end up with 
> that gear other than just price? With the same options available, 
> would you buy it again?
>
> (Please avoid the flamable aspects of that conversation)
> _______________________________________________
> foundry-nsp mailing list
> foundry-nsp at puck.nether.net <mailto:foundry-nsp at puck.nether.net>
> http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/foundry-nsp
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundry-nsp mailing list
> foundry-nsp at puck.nether.net
> http://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/foundry-nsp