[j-nsp] EX 8200 deployment

[Chris Evans]

Yes, you are correct. The Cat6500 has some new hardware coming to it,
however it's still going to be the Cat6500 at the end of the day. Still
using IOS, still integrating with older line cards, etc.. The Cat6500 has
served my company for years, we have thousands in production ranging from
Sup1a to the Sup720 series, CatOS to IOS, etc.. While it has served us,
along with bringing many headaches, it's time to move on to the new age.

You are right though, currently we're only replacing out Cat6500's in the
data centers as we just cannot get the reliability, 10GigE density and
support for CEE/DCB (future 7K cards) that the N7K has/will bring.. The fact
that we can do ISSU is huge for us.. I believe the EX8200 is on track to
have ISSU support in 2011. However in the corp environment, we're still
using Cat6500's. I honestly would like to see us start to use stackables.
The access tier is a commodity anymore, there is no reason to have a high
dollar box.

We completed a RFP late last year and we reviewed Brocade(Foundry), Cisco
and Juniper's latest offering. We found that the EX8200 didn't have some
critical features that our 6500's have, so it was almost an immediate no. I
wish somehow Juniper would realize this and put more resources into the EX
series. It has TONS of potential, just little pushing on the product side..
Cisco is going to release the 2nd gen of Nexus 5K later this year. Cisco is
also releasing a whole new line of modules for the 7K, new fabric extenders,
etc.. That is just for the Nexus series. As you stated they're bringing new
hardware to the Cat6500 as well. Juniper doesn't have any new modules for
the EX8200 series, I've heard rumor of a high density 10Gig module, but it
seems to be vaporware. No plans (as of now) to support CEE/DCB. The EX4500
platform is barely in beta stage.. The list goes on, they're moving too
slow! Very FRUSTRATING!

Currently we only use Juniper products for SSLVPN, Internet edge and some
other minor roles, I'd like to see them have more of a play in our
environment. How can I bring another switch vendor into my environment when
the "new" box doesn't do what I have now and will be outdated in a short
time frame. It's a very hard thing to justify.



On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Mark Tinka <mtinka at globaltransit.net>wrote:

> On Sunday 21 March 2010 08:52:54 pm chrisccnpspam2 at gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> > Then also take the fact that the 6500 is
> >  dead as a strategic platform. The Nexus 7k is the new
> >  boy on the block.
>
> You've probably heard that the 6500 will be getting a new
> switch fabric/supervisor module which should resolve a lot
> of the hardware limitations seen in the current EARL (for
> all intents and purposes, it should be the same EARL being
> used on the Nexus 7000 series platforms).
>
> It probably makes more sense for anyone looking at a new
> 6500 to consider the Nexus 7000 for a number of reasons,
> least of which isn't the potential for future 40Gbps and
> 100Gbps Ethernet support. But Cisco will still get customers
> for the new fabric, especially existing 6500 folk.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark.
>