[j-nsp] VPLS scalability question.. OTV answer?

[Chris Evans]

All the communication that we've received from Juniper is that they perceive
MPLS and VPLS to be their answer to Cisco's OTV. I've been researching VPLS
on the Juniper platforms and I cannot find any definite information as to
how much it can scale performance/bandwidth wise. VPLS requires either a VT
interface or a LSI interface on that hardware. The VT interfaces can only be
obtained by hardware that can do tunnel services, and the LSI interface is
only on the MX platforms from what I can read.

As tunnel PICs have limited performance and LSI interfaces 'steal' physical
10Gig interfaces on the 10Gig MX blades (I know it won't on the GigE blades)
how does Juniper expect to be able to provide high bandwidth VPLS while
still providing high port density? The TRIO cards have some inline services,
but does they offer these services? It seems like Juniper is expecting to
throw another half baked solution out there to compete with Cisco and I'm
not sure how they're going to scale the infrastructure. The Cisco solution
uses the built in ASIC hardware to do this and do not require ports to be
stolen, etc.. It really bothers me that you have to lose interfaces and/or
install special hardware to do inline services, which only increases the
cost of the platforms drastically.

Anyone have some insight?

Thanks

Chris