[j-nsp] M5/M10/M20 gear questions

[Charles Sprickman]

Hi all,

I am trying to gather some more info on the downside of the older/used 
gear.  On paper, it looks like anything from an M5 up would be more than 
capable of meeting our needs for the next few years.

After looking at the cluepon site and digging around the archives here, I 
still have some questions...

It looks like with the exception of the ejector handle, the PICs are 
basically the same between the M5/10/20/7i.  If that's true, that's great 
news.

Next up is the PICs themselves.  It looks like there are several revisions 
of ATM PICs and GigE PICs.  For example, I see references to "ATM2", which 
appears to be a hardware differentiation, and I think that for DSL 
aggregation, I probably want ATM2.  On the GigE PICs, what is the main 
difference between the older and newer versions?  I will likely cheap out 
and go with just 2 or 3 of them and for the less bandwidth-intensive stuff 
stick one of them in a GigE switch and do the "router on a stick" config 
with VLANs.  Any thoughts on this?

As for the hardware, the nifty thing about these routers is that all the 
hard work of pushing packets around is done on the ASICs.  That's good and 
bad I assume since newer gear has newer ASICs.  What are the main features 
that a current generation router has that an older one would not due to 
limitations in the older ASICs?

Since the routing engine is basically a PC running a modded FreeBSD 
distro, what's the story with moving parts there?  I'm having a hard time 
tracking down which models have flash for the RE and which use a hard 
drive.  I assume if there's a drive, it would be a wise investment to grab 
a new drive...

And again, I'm still looking for any ballpark prices on software contracts 
for these older models.  Just a very rough annual cost would really help.

Lastly, are there any very good books covering the hardware peculiarities 
and JunOS in general anyone would like to recommend?

I think that covers it for now.

Thanks again for all your help...

Charles

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