[j-nsp] Upgrade from M10i?

[michael.firth at bt.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: juniper-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net 
> [mailto:juniper-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Mark Johnson
> Sent: 03 February 2009 14:31
> To: juniper-nsp at puck.nether.net
> Subject: [j-nsp] Upgrade from M10i?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> We have a number of M7i's and an M10i and are very happy with them.
> 
> However, we need to go to 10Gig shortly and I wondered if 
> anyone could 
> suggest what options are available. I understand Juniper have 
> some new 
> switches and wonderd if they might be suitable.
> 
> We need at least 4 x 10G ports and 8 x 1G ports, IPv4/IPv6, 
> OSPFv2/OSPFv3, full BGP (peering/transit), no MPLS and that's about 
> it.
> 
> While I love Junipers I would consider Cisco so if anyone might 
> suggest suitable Cisco models I'd also appreciate that.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Mark 
> 
As others have said, the M120 will do what you need, but you'll burn a lot of its real-estate to get 4 x 10Gig ports.
If you can afford it, using 2 type 2 4-port GigE PICs will give more spare capacity than using 1 type 3 8-port PIC - the type 2 FPCs on the M120 can take 4 PICs, while the type 3 FPCs can only take a single PIC. That means that using 2 x CFPCs, 2 x Type3 10GigE and 1 x Type3 8xGigE, you've filled 5/6ths of the FPC slots, and filled the FPCs in them to capacity. If you use type2 GigE PICs, you've still filled 5/6ths of the FPC slots, but one of your FPCs is still half empty.

The second option is the EX platform, if you make 2 EX 4200-24s into a virtual chassis, and put the 2x10GigE uplink module into each one, you can create a router / switch with 48 GigE ports and 4 10GigE ports. This will be the cheapest option, but the code is still maturing, and I'm not sure its capable of handling a full BGP table (I think theres a sub-100,000 route limit).

The final, and probably best option, is the MX series. I don't have any direct experience with this platform (yet), but you could use an MX240 with a 10GigE and a GigE DPC-R which would meet your needs. As others have said, and as with the EX option, you will have rather more GigE ports than you wanted - 40 instead of 8.

Regards

Michael