[j-nsp] MX104 capabilities question

[Anhost]

One Trio chip set. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 7, 2016, at 5:56 PM, Adam Vitkovsky <Adam.Vitkovsky at gamma.co.uk> wrote:

>> Ross Halliday
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2016 10:01 PM
>> To: Saku Ytti
>> Cc: juniper-nsp at puck.nether.net
>> Subject: Re: [j-nsp] MX104 capabilities question
>> 
>> Hi Saku,
>> 
>>> I don't see how this makes it any less of a box, in my mind this makes
>>> it superior box. You lost single PFE/linecard, which happens to be
>>> only linecard you have.
>>> In my mind fabricless single-linecard design is desirable, as it
>>> reduces delay and costs significantly. Not only can you omit fabric
>>> chip, but you can get >2x the ports on faceplate, as no capacity is
>>> wasted on fabric side.
>> 
>> This is a good point but kind of tangential to what I was getting at. Before we
>> were really familiar with the MX104, we went on sales and marketing
>> material that talked about "the little" MXes and "MXes with multiple slots".
>> It's very misleading. Even JUNOS MX documentation talks about FPCs being
>> separate in control and forwarding plane operations, when in reality there's
>> only AFEB0 and that's the whole box. No isolation, and "slot diversity" is
>> basically only a little bit better than adjacent ports... Again, contrary to what
>> the popular advice about "multi-slot MX routers" is. The MX104 is not really a
>> multi-slot router in the traditional sense, it just takes more MICs.
> One thing I'm not clear about MX104 and MX80 is, are there two TRIO chips or just one?
> 
> 
>>> Regarding PR1031696, years ago I had bunch of 3rd party SFPs which
>>> would crash MX PFE. I practically begged JTAC to fix it. The issue was
>>> caused by SFP being sluggish to answer to I2C polling, and the code
>>> which was expecting an answer crashed when it couldn't receive I2C
>>> answer fast enough. I tried to explain to them, it's only matter of
>>> time before original SFP develops I2C error, at which point you'll see
>>> this from customer buying 1st party optics. JTAC was unconvinced, told
>>> me to re-open if I see it on 1st party.
>>> I used many channels to complain, but no avail. To me this was
>>> absolutely appalling and short-sighted behaviour.
>> 
>> Yes, and then it crashes every single SFP... brilliant design backed with
>> brilliant support... give me a break!
>> 
>>> But all platforms can have all kind of problems, and if you