[j-nsp] EX Feedback

[Brandon Bennett]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Paul Stewart <paul at paulstewart.org> wrote:

> Considering the idea of 5 48 port EX4200 switches with 10GE uplinks in a
> "ring" type setup or use the 5m cables on the back to do the same and save
> the 10GE ports on the front.  The two end switches would have GigE
> connections going to our distribution layer switches (Cat6500's).


If you can do the virtual-chassis uplink ports in the back (up to 5m apart
with a braided ring) then do it.  Like you said you will save the 10G
uplinks and 128Gbps(marking performance included) vs 10Gbps.


> Anyone doing something like this today and could share their opinions on
> performance, stability etc?


The switches have matured nicely over the past year or so.  There were some
issues when they were first released, but most of the problems has been
solved.  Stability wise I have not had an issue with 9.4 or later releases
of JunOS.

There are still some annoyances with some cli commands like the lack of a
range function.  Easily fixed with some scripting or some Excel magic, but
still annoying for quick changes.   There are rumors of plans to add this
functionality, but nothing solid.


> Do these switches have any problems handling 100-200Mb/s of layer3 traffic
> while participating in OSPF?


OSPF is included in the base license so there is good cost saving over Cisco
here.  100-200Mb/s of traffic (routed or not) shouldn't be any sort of issue
for these switches.  They are line rate on all ports and have some of the
lowest latency in the biz.


HTH,

Brandon