[j-nsp] Opinions on fusion provider edge

[Tarko Tikan]

hey,

> Yep, Juniper told us at the time that Fusion was based on open
> standards (802.1BR) and not proprietary in any way. Funny how they
> don't support the use of any other 802.1BR complaint device and, I
> doubt it would work. They must have some property gubbins in there
> like pushing the Fusion firmware blob from the aggregation device to
> the satellite device. If the Fusion firmware wasn't on the QFX the MX
> and QFX wouldn't "bond". Not sure how the MX detects that (LLDP?) - I
> had a (albeit quick) look at the standard back then and couldn't seen
> anything related, so I presume an MX AD would reject a random 802.1
> BR compatible device.

Well, the 802.1BR part might very well be standard. But it does not 
cover functionality like loading the software to port extender, 
discovery etc. This is proprietary and as a result makes the whole thing 
vendor specific.

Funny enough, they do use standards to implement this functionality (why 
reinvent the wheel?). One vendor I know creates internal VRF with DHCP 
server to boot up and manage port extenders.

-- 
tarko