[j-nsp] Juniper M-series vs 72xx/NPE-G2

[TCIS List Acct]

Phil Sykes wrote:
> My 2c's worth inline:
> 
>  > - M5, M10, M20, or M7i - what is my best bet for the traffic 
>> levels mentioned above?  We need the basics - BGP, OSPF, GRE 
>> tunnel capability, and some basic ACLs.  Nothing fancy like MPLS, etc.
> 
>  All of the above are capable of handling the traffic levels mentioned
> without any issues.
>  GRE Tunneling will require a tunnel PIC or an M7i with an integrated
> AS-PIC, unfortunately.

One other item I forgot to mention -- we will need NetFlow support, if that 
makes any difference on the platform.

>  The M7i/M10i are a newer chipset, which is required to support some of
> the newest PICs (e.g. 4 port Gig-E IQ2). 
>  They're also smaller and lighter - the original M5 and M10s could have
> eaten more salad during the design process.
>  The M10i also has redundant routing and forwarding blades, which its
> predecessor didn't.

Understood.

>  I would imagine used M5s and M10s are going to be most available. Make
> sure they are the version with the E-FEB, which supports newer cards
> like the SFP-based Ethernet PICs.
>  Ideally for future-proofing and most cost-effective support of GRE, get
> the M7i with integrated AS-PIC.

I assume the "E-FEB" is the "Enhanced" FEB?

>  Watch that M20 and M5/M7i/M10/M10i PICs are not (practically)
> interchangable.

Is this the "lack of an eject handle" issue I've been reading about?

>  http://juniper.cluepon.net/index.php/Routing_Engine
> 
>  RE-333 (a.k.a RE-2.0) is a minimum as you'll need to be able to install
> 768MB of memory to handle full BGP table scaling. Commodity memory will
> work, but may not be supported.

Unfortunately that URL doesn't really contain any practical performance data for 
the RE's.  I'll keep Googling for some.

Thanks for the info.

--Mike