[j-nsp] M7i

[Jonathan Lassoff]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 11:49 PM, cjwstudios <cjwstudios at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Juniper folks :)
>
> I'm setting up a remote metro ethernet site (fiber in a closet) that
> will have 2 x 100mb BGP transit feeds and a smattering of IGP feeds.
> The traffic will be service provider transit without inspection, NAT
> or other services.
>
> Since everything is cost sensitive these days I initially planned on
> implementing an ebayish 7206vxr-npe-g1.  Although I was quite happily
> slinging the 7206 around 10 years ago I realized tonight that it has
> been 10 years and the 7206 platform is well aged.   M7i (M7i 2AC 2FE
> w/ RE400,PE-1GE-SFP) are quite common on the secondary market now and
> likely more than enough to get started.  Although trunking multiple
> metro FE feeds to a single GE port will be frowned upon I may consider
> this as an option.
>
> I suppose my questions are whether a base M7i config out of the box
> will support this application or if there are better options out
> there.  Thank you in advance.

The M7 is an awesome router for small to medium sites. It does have an
on-board GigE port, so if you can fit everything in that or a
downstream switch it could work.
However, it's really starting to show its age and there's not much
development happening on the M-series routers anymore (at least it
seems that way to me -- I'm sure they're still supported).
They're also pretty rock solid with JunOS 9. JunOS code quality and
feature-completeness has started to really slip since 10.0.

I'm not sure I totally understand from your description what you're
trying to build, but it sounds like you're looking for a router that
will support up to 200 Mbit/s of routed traffic that can speak BGP and
whatever IGP you're running.

If your environment is all copper ethernet (seems pretty common these
days), I might suggest checking out some of the nicer EX switches.
While really targeted at the "top of rack" market segment, they can
route up to 10GigE (with the right modules and platform), and speak a
variety of protocols (though some require extra software licensing).
With a little negotiating (remember, "list price" is very inflated),
you should be able to get a lot more bang for your buck over an older
M-series in an all-Ethernet environment.

My two cents.

Cheers,
jof