[j-nsp] [c-nsp] juniper trinity

[Roger Gabarit]

>
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 12:54:40PM -0700, Marlon Duksa wrote:
> > This Trio or Trinity, whatever they call it is internally grown
> > technology...a combination if EZChip + I-chip functionality.
> >
> > Plus I don't think it is a good strategy for Juniper to use third party
> > vendors as this will not give them differentiation...
>
> I've heard people make this argument, but it is absurd. The only thing
> EZChip is used for on the MX is basic Ethernet framing and MAC lookup.
> No doubt it was much cheaper and easier for Juniper to use an off the
> shelf chip for this than to spin their own just to do this. To go from
> there to claiming that the rest of the forwarding/queuing/etc will be
> the same as a Cisco platform is absolutely insane, the only thing they
> have in common is the Ethernet frame.
>

I'm sorry not to agree on this one. Unless you can prove me that I'm wrong
:)
- Juniper uses the chips on the MX series only in -Q- Line Cards. So when
you use something only in advanced QoS line cards, there's something related
to QoS, definitely.
- Check the description of EZChip NPs on their website (
http://www.ezchip.com), they are built to provide the Ethernet framing and
MAC lookup AND traffic management). Neither Cisco nor Juniper would buy a
chip to have it do only 20% of what it could do. Cisco uses the chip in the
ES+/ES40 and in ASR 9k cards.

Quote :
EZchip’s NP-2 is a highly-flexible network processor with integrated traffic
managers providing wire-speed packet processing and advanced flow-based
bandwidth control. The NP-2 offers the speed of an ASIC combined with the
flexibility of a programmable microprocessor. It provides the silicon core
of next-generation Carrier Ethernet Switches and Routers (CESR). Through
programming the NP-2 delivers a variety of applications such as L2
switching, Q-in-Q, PBT, T-MPLS, VPLS, MPLS and IPv4/IPv6 routing. The
integrated traffic management provides advanced QoS for flow-based service
level agreements (SLA) and enabling triple-play services (voice, video,
data).

All that stuff makes me think that the 2 vendors will not release any 100G
ports (*with advanced QoS*) on MX or ASR until the EZChip NP4 is produced
(not only prototypes). That gives by the way > 2 years advance to
Alcatel-Lucent from that point of view, because their 100G NP has been ready
since last year. Funny market :)

But well, let's wait for Juniper's next week announcement.

Roger