[j-nsp] MPLS in the Access

[Phil Bedard]

> PBB seems to be a cool modern acronym with a lot of buzz around, if someone
> has any more or less real experience with it, hey, how about to share your
> thoughts? :)
> 
> Another approach can be a large VC ring of EX4200s built with VCE (ethernet)
> links:
> http://www.juniper.net/us/en/local/pdf/implementation-guides/8010045-en.pdf
> 
> Seems to be a reasonable solution when scale of up to 9 nodes in a single
> ring is OK. First EX4200 is known to be more or less stable (in my
> experience), second VCCP is actualy ISIS which is way more interesting than
> most ethernet scaling technologies rooted in LAN. As of my experience,
> Juniper's VC implementation is rather not bad. Moreover they even announced
> EX4500 to support virtual chassis some day, but this is too dreamy by now,
> and no one knows how good EX4500 will be.
> 
> Actually I know some vendor producing small devices, which can do VPLS,
> Martini and L3VPN in 1-unit form factor with wire speed performance of 24GE
> with 10GE up-links for price at the level of 2xEX4200-24F. Even the vendor's
> reputation is not that bad. But since I have absolutely no experience with
> them yet and everything is too fuzzy, I'd prefer to follow the Mark's way
> and ask if someone can say something less abstract :)
> 

We have over 1000 nodes deployed today in various metros using MPLS in the access and 
should have close to 2000 by the end of this year.   Our largest metro is about 500 nodes today.    
  
We are only doing CES and Ethernet services right now but may expand to L3VPN relatively 
soon.  

There are vendors who are shipping boxes today with 24x1GE and 2x10GE uplink, wire-rate, which 
can do VPLS and P2P Ethernet/CES, but no L3VPN.  However, you can connect into a L3VPN virtual 
routed interface via a P2P pseudowire.  The boxes are cheaper than EX4200s...  

In our network the access rings only contain P2P services and all multipoint services be it 
VPLS or L3VPN are hosted on larger agg nodes.  One limitation of these boxes is they can 
only push 2 labels so they only support 1:1 FRR and not facility backup.  They will have 
another box out by the end of the year with more advanced capability.  


Phil