[j-nsp] EX4600 Vs QFX 5100 VS ACX 5048

Fri Apr 29 17:10:42 EDT 2016

Yw Colton

Yes we are mostly cisco as we deployed an mpls network a few years back with asr9k core and me3600 distribution… asr901 at cell sites…

Yes Colton cisco has 1U box, more about that below… NCS5K

Agreed Colton the ASR920 tops out at too few 10 gig interfaces to be considered for my eval

Business case ?  perhaps the primary driving factor was in our ftth broadband network where we are selling tons of bw to our subs….those calix e7 olt’s have dual 10 gig uplinks and will have more in the future… to keep up with the pace of BW consumption we needed more 10 gig interfaces in the distribution layer of our network… the current device there was Cisco’s ME3600 with only (2) 10 gig (4 on the CX model)

We determined that we wanted (8) or more 10 gigs in an mpls capable box similar in size/function as the cisco me3600 that we widely deployed…

We had deployed the ME3600 with MPLS L2VPN and L3VPN so we needed a box that could do that also.  We also deployed MEF-style eline, elan, etree services within the me3600’s and asr9k’s so I needed a box that could do that also.  (aka, vpls, vpws, bgp-ad w/ldp-sig auto-vpls)…also deployed was mpls l3vpn vrf for ipv4 (aka vpnv4, inet-vpn) and with plans to go to 6VPE (aka mpls l3vpn w/ipv6 support)… so yeah, I needed all that…

we ruled out the cisco asr920 was it tops out with (6) 10 gig

we ruled out the cisco ncs5k as it was problematic in its infancy.  I was attracted to this box with (~40) 10 gig and (4) 100 gig, but the problems were to great (bad issues with l3vpn and l2vpn) and some things just weren’t even there yet.

We ruled out cisco asr903 and juniper mx104 style modular/larger boxes as me3600 replacements since they  were bigger… and not quite what we were looking for…

We liked and settled on the juniper acx5048… 

Hope that helps…

- Aaron

From: Colton Conor [mailto:colton.conor at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2016 3:29 PM
To: Aaron <aaron1 at gvtc.com>
Cc: Jerry Jones <jjones at danrj.com>; Juniper List <juniper-nsp at puck.nether.net>
Subject: Re: [j-nsp] EX4600 Vs QFX 5100 VS ACX 5048

Aaron,

Thanks for the information and real world examples. Great to hear you got Cisco and Juniper to work together as well. Sounds like you had Cisco in your network today, and are adding Juniper. What was the business case or reason for this? Is it because Cisco does not have a similar MEF 10G 1U box? If they do I am not aware what model it is. Most are recommending an ASR920, but that only has like 4 10G interfaces.

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 3:06 PM, Aaron <aaron1 at gvtc.com <mailto:aaron1 at gvtc.com> > wrote:

I recently purchased several ACX5048's and am testing and deploying them as
we speak...all in all, I'm pleased thus far.  This is pretty much my first
experience with Juniper/MPLS devices.

I got a working scenario as of yesterday of EVPLAN (MEF-speak for ELAN with
tagging on PE-CE handoff)...(basically VPLS Routing Instance with BGP AD and
LDP Sig) the JTAC was helpful in understanding the PE-CE Junos Ethernet tag
push/pop I needed.  This is interoperating with IOS XR (asr9k) and Classic
IOS (ME3600).  One glitch was noticed but it might be a subtlety during
service activation/change, but was also only seen on the 9k XR side as a
down'd psuedowire... (j)tac cases are in the works to understand why that
occurred.  Other than that acx5048, me3600, asr9k are working in a RFC4762
VPLS scenario.

I will say that JTAC did not know how to do this right away... it took them
a day or more to figure it out.  JTAC said that this ACX5048 platform is
fairly new and they are learning it as well.  (this was the person I talked
to anyway)

I have a working scenario with MPLS L3VPN on the ACX5048 also... inet-vpn...
this is also interop'ing just fine with ME3600 and ASR9k...

I did a brief test with ELINE (mef speak for p-to-p pw) and seemed ok

I have a few more things I need to test, but at this point I've been pleased
with the ACX5048.

I love the (48) 10 gig interfaces (6) 40 gig in a 1U size !

- Aaron

-----Original Message-----
From: juniper-nsp [mailto:juniper-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net <mailto:juniper-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net> ] On Behalf Of
Jerry Jones
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2016 1:07 PM
To: Colton Conor <colton.conor at gmail.com <mailto:colton.conor at gmail.com> >
Cc: Juniper List <juniper-nsp at puck.nether.net <mailto:juniper-nsp at puck.nether.net> >
Subject: Re: [j-nsp] EX4600 Vs QFX 5100 VS ACX 5048

The ACX has many more MPLS and CE features compared to the QFX.

On Apr 29, 2016, at 11:35 AM, Colton Conor <colton.conor at gmail.com <mailto:colton.conor at gmail.com> > wrote:

Besides port count and expansion modules, what is the main differences
between these three Juniper switches (actually Juniper has the ACX under
their router section on their website). I believe all three use Broadcom
Trident II chips.

This Juniper doc says:

Even though QFX5100 and EX4600 Switches use the same chipset, MPLS support
differs.EX4600 switches support only basic MPLS functionality while QFX5100
switches support some of the more advanced features. See "MPLS Feature
Support on QFX Series and EX4600 Switches" on page 17 for details.
http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/en_US/junos14.1/information-products/pathway <http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/en_US/junos14.1/information-products/pathway-pages/ex4600/mpls.pdf> 
-pages/ex4600/mpls.pdf

The ACX seems interesting. I know it is MEF 2.0 certified while the other
two are not. Besided MEF certification I would like to know how it differs
from the QFX5100 as the port count is identical.

Does anyone have experience with these three platforms?
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