[j-nsp] MX240

Tue May 11 00:20:09 EDT 2010

On Tuesday 11 May 2010 09:44:21 am Keith wrote:

> Our Juniper quote came back with a fully redundent MX240
>  with 8 SFP's at the same price point. It has a
>  MX-MPC1-3D line card and the 20 port GigE SFP MIC.

The 3D line cards are great but require more recent code. If 
you've been following the list in the last several weeks, 
you'd see much concern about stability of JUNOS 10.x, which 
the 3D line cards need.

I'd be wary of the 3D line cards and the code they need. 
Rather, if I went with the MX240 today, I'd suggest they 
quote you on the regular DPC line cards. Coming from a 7206-
VXR/NPE-G1 system, this should be more than sufficient, and 
you can enjoy (more stable?) 9.x code. It should also be 
cheaper (I assume), so no change in price upward, but rather 
(and hopefully), downward.

> Never used Juniper except for an M10i we had to play with
>  in our lab for about a month 5 or 6 years ago.

Quite different from the MX240 architecturally, but 
experience on the M10i should get you fairly ready for the 
MX-series routers.

> How much router is the MX240 compared to the 1002? Is it
>  worth it to even compare the two platforms?

The ASR1002 and MX240 are not really easily comparable, for 
a number of reasons. Now if you had an ASR1006, that is a 
slightly different issue, but even then, the DPC/3D line 
cards on the MX-series make back-to-back comparison the 
ASR1000 series quite difficult (the ASR1000 platform is a 
centralized forwarding system, while the MX-series is 
generally distributed, among other things). You're more 
likely to compare it with the ASR9000 series boxes, 
especially if your minimum box is an MX480, or if Cisco come 
out with something smaller than the ASR9006.

> Both reps from both companies knew they were going
>  against one another and I think what Juniper offered is
>  more bang for the buck so to speak.

I would agree, the MX240 priced the same as an ASR1002 is 
good value, precisely because the MX240 is in another league 
here. If you can get your suppliers to lock in support and 
line card prices over the period of your use of the 
platform, and if you are able to work with the MX240 within 
your team, I'd definitely choose it over the ASR1002.

If you really want to give the Cisco suppliers a better 
chance at competing, ask them to come back to you with an 
ASR1006 offer.

> We take 3 x OC3's from our upstream, one BGP feed.

Hmmh, OC-3's in an MX240 could be quite pricey, both cash- 
and slot-wise (the MX240 isn't very large). You'd need a 
minimum of JUNOS 9.5 to support OC-3/STM-1 in the Type 2 MX-
FPC.

Assuming a redundant RE/SCB install in your MX240, you'd 
need other Gig-E-based PIC's for Ethernet connectivity to 
your backbone. Again, it starts looking messy - if you can 
settle for a single RE/SCB, then you can stick a DPC in 
there and have more Gig-E/10-Gig-E ports. But remember, the 
MX-FPC's generally give you only 2 slots for PIC's.

In this case, an ASR1000 would make better sense since it 
eats up SONET/SDH/TDM line cards more efficiently than an 
Ethernet box such as the MX240. You can also scale from 2 to 
10 Gig-E ports in the ASR1002 (the 10x 1-Gig-E line card on 
the ASR1000 platform eats up 2 SPA slots due to its double-
width), so that's good Ethernet density.

> We are
>  looking 3 to 5 yrs out and the MX240 looks to be better
>  on paper, but is it "too much" router for what we have?
>  Can one have "too much" router?

I don't think it's possible to have "too much router" if 
your price (both capex and opex) is right :-). Of course, 
space and power constraints notwithstanding.

> I'd kind of like some real world info on the Juniper
>  product since we don't know as much as we'd like, so I
>  figured to ask here.

Capex and opex being what they are, usability in your 
network is likely going to be your biggest concern. If you 
think you can switch to Juniper and you have the patience 
and will to dig into it (you can only learn with each 
passing day), it's a better deal now unless your Cisco 
supplier can get you a similar offer on an ASR1006, IMHO.

Cheers,

Mark.
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