[f-nsp] Upgrade path for Serveriron XL

[Chris Good]

Andy Dills wrote:
> We're looking to upgrade our aging Serveriron XL to something that can 
> load balance up to a gigabit of traffic, and be setup as a redundant pair.

There is nothing stopping the XLs running as a redundant pair.  Unless you
are running out of CPU capacity the XL/G will give you the gigabit you desire
at very low cost.  Alternatively a chassis device with a WSM4 and a B8GC
gives you a lot more grunt for very little capital outlay.  The SI400/BI4000 chassis are available for peanuts these days.

The WSM4 is rougly 3* the performance of an XL and you can run dual-WSMs to
double that again.  With the chassis based devices you have the option to
upgrade to WSM6/7 with 2-3 times more performance than the WSM4 but you
would also need to upgrade the line card(s) to the Jetcore version at the 
same time.

The SI-4G is also an excellent option.  Lots more grunt than you have
at present and lower power consumption than the chassis boxes.

You're really spoiled for excellent (and extremely good value) options
on the old Foundry lines.  I am in the slighly odd position of spending
at 10-20 times more on firewalls than I do on load balancers to get the
performance balanced which seems rather too lop-sided.

The redundancy is very easy to set up.  Have a look for the 
"ServerIronXL L4-7 Software Configuration Guide" which google may find
for you, possibly under the filename xl-sw-book.pdf

Chris