[j-nsp] Juniper PTX1000

[Saku Ytti]

On 19 December 2016 at 15:52,  <adamv0025 at netconsultings.com> wrote:

Hey,

> To be perfectly honest with you, I'd recommend PTX only if you know exactly
> why you need what this platform has to offer. If the answer is I don't
> know/don't care/or can live with MX limitations, then there's no need to
> waste the money on the premium product and you'd be fine with MX or maybe
> even QFX. (though if you are considering MX960 I'd recommend ASR9k instead,
> but again, only if you can justify the extra cost).
>
> I think PTX can be compared fairly only to CRS-X or NCS6k. (high-end P-core
> boxes)
> And QFX can be compared to NCS5K (high-density dumb MPLS SW)

Obviously there are many ways to look at things. And there is modest
way to help someone choosing platform without knowing the
requirements. But I do disagree with virtually all these points.

'can live with MX limitations', is odd thing to say, considering MX is
NPU/run-to-completion, it can do everything, in due time. What
limitations does it have over PTX? Whole value proposition of PTX is
if you don't need all MX functionality, but you need density or better
watt or dollar per Gbps. PTX is cheaper, stupider box.
Of course if you don't need the density and PTX port utilisation is
poor, then it'll be expensive stupid box.

When you talk about QFX, I wonder what QFX you mean. For Internet use
only QFX10k makes sense, rest of them do not have port buffers for
Internet requirements. And QFX10k is literally same box as PTX1k, with
half the control-plane DRAM. Any differences presented are purely
marketing. Granted it seems QFX10k is being marketed and small-FIB
PTX1k.
ASR9k right now should be approached with caution, only Tomahawk is
supported in XRe and not all interfaces you might be interested have
Tomahawk card out. There is also new architecture in horizon, both new
architecture and XRe are opportunities, but they are also risks.

CRS-x is NPU/run-to-completion, so it's much closer to ASR9k/MX then
pipeline based PTX/NCS. I agree that PTX/QFX10k compare against NCS5k.

-- 
  ++ytti