[j-nsp] Router selection, Juniper intro

[Charles Sprickman]

Hello all,

I've been digging around the Juniper site as well as some of the archives 
for this list, but I'm looking for some more input.  We're a smallish ISP 
and we are currently pushing a ton of stuff through a dated Cisco 7206-VXR
with an NPE-300.  It can handle "normal" traffic, but that's about it.  On 
average CPU/interrupts are around 65%.

Currently I need to terminate two upstream 100Mb/s transit connections, 
another 100Mb/s connection to ConEd's metro ethernet cloud, 100Mb/s for 
our servers and an OC-3 into Covad for ADSL/SDSL/T1.  Very soon those 
transit links will need to be upped to GigE as we're peaking at around 
95Mb/s during the day.  Yes, it is amazing that all that crap works on the 
old thing we've got.

So I think basically anything in the Juniper M-series is going to be more 
than adequate for our needs.  Going forward, I think just about anything 
we'll add to the mix will be delivered via ethernet (we're in a telco 
hotel) - even Covad is starting to migrate away from ATM and will be able 
to deliver our backhaul over ethernet.  The lowest-end M stuff has more 
than enough horsepower for our purposes, and even if I run out of GigE 
ports I can just shuffle stuff off to a switch and VLAN stuff.

Things that I need to look at for the future include implementing MPLS 
(for covad and ConEd), getting better QoS stuff setup for our DSL 
customers, better QoS for metro ether people, and of course any value-add 
"services" we can provide to customers through the router.

Lastly, I have a max of around $15K to spend, which I'm aware is not much.
My Cisco option would be an NPE-G1.

My questions after seeing what I've seen here are:

-What's the story with the EOL M5?  How long will software and spares be 
available?  Any reason to avoid it altogether?
-What are the known problematic pieces of hardware in the older products?
-What is the pricing model for software support?  Can anyone give me some
example pricing for an M7i or an M5?
-What gotchas are involved in the used market?  Does Juniper actively seek
to "punish" users of used gear as Cisco has in the past (no license
transfers, no hardware support with recertification, etc.)?
-Who are some good resellers, both new and used?
-Does Juniper have the equivalent of Cisco's "RBE" for DSL aggregation
(see example below)?  I couldn't track it down or translate it via Juniper's
published manuals.
-Is the CLI and config management as good as their little flash demo of 
the CLI implies?  Oddly enough, that tool pushed me towards Juniper.
-I've given up on the Cisco TAC website, it's a total mess these days and 
I can't be bothered to keep up with how things are organized.  Is 
Juniper's support site a better resource?

I figure if you folks are talking about stickers, this can't be too far 
OT.  :)

Thanks,

Charles

___
Charles Sprickman
NetEng/SysAdmin
Bway.net - New York's Best Internet - www.bway.net
spork at bway.net - 212.655.9344