[j-nsp] Best route reflector platform

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 04:20:15PM +0000, Jeff Aitken wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 06:47:41PM +0200, Mark Tinka wrote:
> > ASR1001 with 16GB DRAM. What more do you want, really?
> 
> Well, it fails my "must run IOS-XR or JUNOS" requirement, for 
> starters. ;-) And seriously, who wants to implement routing policy in 
> IOS?!  Bletch.
> 
> What I want is something based on a generic compute platform, ala 
> JUNOSphere/VIRL.  That lets me scale the control plane as big as I 
> need to, avoids wasting money on purpose-built hardware optimized for 
> forwarding, and comes with the added bonus of using the same OS & 
> policy language that's already widely deployed in my network, so at 
> least I don't get any NEW interop issues.  The downside is that 
> neither vendor sells such a thing right now, and so we're stuck 
> arguing about which square peg fits best into the round hole.  
> ("small" ASR9k and MX here, FWIW)
> 
> Oh and I also want a two-vendor solution so that I'm (hopefully) not 
> completely screwed the next time one of them discovers a new 
> attribute- handling bug.

I've lost count of the number of network operators who have begged for 
Juniper to release a decent route reflector platform, for more years 
than I can count, and they have steadfastly refused to do so. In fact, 
the more we beg for an incredibly simple, cheap, effective, and known 
working product (e.g. take the JCS and put it on a single 1U PC instead 
of a $%^(*ing 12U blade server), the more they insist that what we 
REALLY need is something much more fucked-in-the-head like a virtualized 
SRX. This of course has zero interest from anyone attached to it, and 
thus nothing happens.

Apparently all the big/slow/stupid carriers are satisfied with buying 
stub MX240s and RE-1800x4's for their route reflectors. And since 
they're really the only ones throwing money at Juniper in this category 
(I guess enterprises don't need dedicated route reflectors :P), we're 
all but guaranteed that they will continue to ignore every other network 
operator on the planet who is begging them to do better.

Le sigh.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
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