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

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 11:56:18AM +0200, Roger Gabarit wrote:
> >
> 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.

Juniper uses EZChips on all MX series line cards, not just -Q. In fact,
the distinction between the original MX DPCs and the -E models is the
rev of EZChip, with the -E's having support for larger microcode (1.5KB
vs 6KB). On regular switching/routing cards the EZChip is used only for
framing and MAC lookup, all of the IP routing and QoS is handled by the
I-Chip. I think you're actually right about the -Q cards, there is some
EZChip QoS functionality used there to implement the per-VLAN features,
but I (and one would assume most sane people with a budget :P) don't
touch the -Q cards. :)

> 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.

I don't think the Trinity announcement has anything to do with 100G, but 
I could be wrong.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)