[j-nsp] EX4550 or QFX5100 for Core

[Giovanni Bellac]

Hi all,

we have migrated our core (8-10x Racks, BGP default route, LACP to the ToR, VLAN, L3, nothing fancy) to a VC of 2x 4200-24T with 12.3R12-S9. 12.3R12-Sx is a recommend version for EX4200. We have had a kernel panic (no JTAC) and I am not confident with this old setup anymore.

Our older stack of 2x 4200-24T with 12.3R6.6 has done its job for years without any problems.

(PS: We have first migrated to 15.1R7-S1 on the new VC - it was terribly buggy - Guys, 15.1 is a JTAC recommend version... I have the feeling and of course reading the mailinglists that Juniper has no inhouse testing anymore ? Note to me: RTFM(ailinglist) first.)

So, we want something new with JTAC support. We need (1/10G)-Base-T, VLAN, L3, nothing fancy, but stable. We have 3k ARP entries.

Option 1) 2x EX4550

Option 2) 2x QFX5100

We want to keep simplicity in and therefore want to use VC. We are pushing some Gbit/s from Rack-to-Rack (backups) and to our two upstreams around 500-600Mbit/s.
QFX5100 hardware seems to be MUCH better than EX4550 hardware. The ARP table size, hash table size etc. on EX4550 is relatively small.
I have read (mailinglists, reddit) that VC is not a good idea on QFX5100 (bugs, bugs, bugs).

Can somebody with these devices in the network can give me some up to date insights?

Thanks in advance!

Kind regards,
Giovanni