[j-nsp] Separate internet transit network versus converged

[Mark Tees]

On 27 March 2016 at 21:37, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.mu> wrote:
>
>
> On 27/Mar/16 01:46, Mark Tees wrote:
>
>> My gut feeling is that the safer option is to run things separately
>> but I also do not wish to create an administrative nightmare for other
>> people to work on the network.
>>
>> Any input, experience, or additional points would be greatly appreciated.
>
> I recall in the early days of MPLS (and specifically, l3vpn's), carriers
> ran separate hardware for l3vpn's from that carrying Internet traffic.
>
> As costs and management got out of control, they run l3vpn's and
> Internet in the same chassis, but on different line cards.
>
> Eventually, everything converged.

That is a telling point.

>
> Are we seeing in interest in going back to separate hardware for l3vpn's
> and Internet? Not sure, but your interest in this is certainly piquing mine.

It is probably more of a paranoid safety thing than anything.

>
> We run a "converged" network. The only time where I've felt that
> services need to be physically separate is for BNG. As much as I'd like
> to run both my BNG and business services/Internet on the same edge
> router, the velocity of feature movements in the BNG space just don't
> make it feasible.

Definitely agree with keeping BNG separate.

>
> I think separating your services on a hardware basis will be costly in
> money and human time terms, but you know your network better than I do.
> What will be telling is whether you are able to maintain this
> structure/policy as your network grows, i.e., you or the business are
> never tempted to re-use a network for the function the other network was
> designed for, due to resource constraints, time constraints, financial
> constraints, convenience constraints, e.t.c.

That's true.

>
> Mark.



-- 
Regards,

Mark L. Tees