[j-nsp] ASR1002 Comparitive

[Mark Tinka]

On Wednesday 18 November 2009 08:29:16 pm 
Keegan.Holley at sungard.com wrote:

> I think it depends on the application.  For example the
> Juniper still has higher port density via support for
> more multiport SONET interfaces.

Ummh... I don't think so.

The M7i/M10i will support 4x STM-1/OC-3 ports or a 1x 
STM-4/OC-12 port in a single slot. The STM-16/OC-48 quad-
width PIC is no longer supported, particularly on the new 
Enhanced CFEB.

The ASR1000 will support up to 8x STM-1/OC-3 ports, 8x 
STM-4/OC-12 and up to 4x STM-16/OC-48 ports per slot. 

> Also, I could be wrong
> but I don't believe the ASR 1002 supports 10G.

There are two models of the ASR1002.

The ASR1002-F has a fixed ESP (Embedded Services Processor) 
rated at 2.5Gbps.

The ASR1002 (modular ESP) supports both a 5Gbps and 10Gbps 
ESP. The 10Gbps Ethernet and STM-64/OC-192 will work in this 
chassis.

> I think
> the ASR1002 is made for an application that people
> usually choose cisco for.  It's the not-so medium sized
> enterprise core or for cpe termination for SONET.

The ASR1002 can do quite a couple of things. One can use it 
as an edge box for relatively high density Ethernet 802.1Q 
aggregation (remember, it has 4x on-board Gig-E ports, and 
3x slots to spare), or even high density SONET/SDH 
aggregation.

There is talk of up'ing the control plane memory on the RP 
(Route Processor) to some "ridiculous" figure. If that 
happens, you're looking at a decent route reflector (which 
would be cool on the ASR1002-F since you're likely not going 
to be forwarding any user traffic through your route 
reflector).

> As you
> start comparing the larger ASR series routers to the
> other M-series I think Juniper still has the advantage
> for NSP applications.

Of course. The next best thing after the M10i is the M120. 
The M40e is pretty cool, but its lack of 10Gbps support just 
make it easier to jump from the M10i straight to the M120 - 
in our case, at least.

But that's not the space we're looking at. We're looking at 
something that's fairly small-to-medium sized, is fairly 
dense both in terms of Ethernet and SONET/SDH, supports only 
centralized forwarding to keep things cheap, and costs 
reasonably for the performance.

> Also, most of the time the price
> is negotiable if you mention that you are thinking of
> going with the cisco.

This goes both ways. But many times, it's not always about 
the money. Even if I could get Juniper to sell me an M320 at 
the price of an ASR1006, I wouldn't want one if one of the 
reasons I needed the form factor of an ASR1006 was because I 
have space constraints.

There's a number of factors that play in, not (always) just 
price.

> I haven't done much comparison
> shopping with the ASR's though.  I think the 7206VXR
> still does the job and is much cheaper than both the M7i
> and the ASR1002.

The 7206-VXR is definitely cheaper than both of them, and 
just as underpowered. I've been able to forward up to 
950Mbps aggregated through an NPE-G2 acting as a small core 
router @ some 85% CPU utilization. As an edge router, I've 
brought one close to 900Mbps at 90% CPU utilization.

No packet loss in both scenarios, but very little fish-head 
room for any nasties.

I wouldn't use this platform anywhere I thought a hardware-
based router, however small, would be more useful.

Cheers,

Mark.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 835 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <https://puck.nether.net/pipermail/juniper-nsp/attachments/20091119/ae473a8f/attachment.bin>