[j-nsp] Performance Teste ?

[sthaug at nethelp.no]

> I saw some articles on a WEB site a company called Miercom:
> 
> http://www.miercom.com/
> 
> http://www.miercom.com/dl.html?fid=20040621&type=report
> 
> http://www.miercom.com/dl.html?fid=20041015&type=report
> 
> The are posting some tests comparing T-640 and cisco 12810 ...
> and Cisco 10000 x E-series.
> 
> The results are a litle stranger because the performance difference is 
> too much agressive in the final results.

Well, look at who paid for the tests. "Cisco Systems engaged Miercom...".
I wouldn't expect outright lies in such tests - but I *would* expect the
tests to be somewhat slanted towards areas where Cisco performs well.
Take the tests as one of several points that you need to evaluate before
you write your purchase order - not as holy writ.

You also need to evaluate for instance software stability and freedom
from bugs (I know what *I* think of IOS versus JunOS here, you need to
make up your own mind).

> Juniper is a very good product with the best performance a ever saw ... 
> but I cannot understand those results.

I agree that Juniper has very good products. However, those Juniper
products are geared towards particular markets (e.g. ISP/carrier), and
you cannot expect Juniper to have the best performance in *all* areas!

As a small example - in the T640 versus 12810 test, they stress the
importance of filters (ACLs) on the router ports. I tend to think of
the T640 as a typical core router which would *not* normally have a 
lot of filters applied to each port - thus I think the test is less
than realistic here.

Finally, I'd like to direct your attention to the following message
from the cisco-nsp list:

	http://puck.nether.net/lists/cisco-nsp/6550.html

This is written by a Cisco employee, but actually has very sensible
advise about comparing Cisco and Juniper routers. It seems clear that
you need much more info than what you find in the basic Miercom tests
to be able to form a valid conclusion.

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug at nethelp.no