I certainly agree with Keith and we are pushing "a lot" of traffic through our
Force10 boxes i.e. E1200's, E600's and a few E300's. As a company they are wery
responsive and easy to work with. Dual cam is definitely recommended.
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith O'neill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Chris Marlatt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: nanog <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Fri Jul 18 10:34:51 2008
Subject: Re: Force10 E300 vs. Juniper MX480
Force 10 is fine. I do suggest he go with the dual cam cards over the regular
cards. I am not sure what Chris is talking about but I have used Force 10 for a
long time, E, C and S series and have found it very stable. It will do
everything you want and then some. The E300 is a good bang for the buck. Sure
Foundry might be cheaper but I hear more complaining about Foundry than any
other platform.
Chris you want to share what issues you have seen with Force 10.
Keith
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Marlatt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Joe Abley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "nanog" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 7:43:33 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: Re: Force10 E300 vs. Juniper MX480
Joe Abley wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> An acquaintance who runs an ISP with an M7i on its border is looking to
> upgrade, because the M7i is starting to creak from all the flesh-tone
> MPEGs his customers are sharing. (How times have changed. Back when I
> was chasing packets, it was flesh-tone JPEGs.)
>
> He's looking at the MX480 and the E300.
>
> The MX480 is attractive because the M7i has been stable as a rock, and
> he's familiar with JUNOS.
>
> The E300 is attractive because it's half the price of the MX480, and has
> the potential to hold layer-2 cards as well as layer-3 ports which makes
> the price per port much more reasonable than the MX480. But he has no
> experience with Force10 at any ISO layer higher than 2.
>
> He doesn't have any exotic requirements beyond OSPF, OSPFv3, BGP, IP and
> IPv6. There's no MPLS in the picture, for example. However, he's going
> to want four or five full tables plus a moderate load of peering routes
> in there. And maybe VRRP.
>
> Thoughts from people who have tried one or the other, or both? Or who
> have faced this kind of problem, and came up with a different answer?
>
> Feel free to send mail off-list; I can summarise if there is interest.
>
>
> Joe
>
I would avoid Force10 if at all possible. In the network I managed I've
had some fairly surprising stability problems with their S series
switches and feature problems (or lack there of) on their E series.
Things you kind of scratch your head at and wonder what they were
thinking. Juniper on the other hand is indeed a bit pricier but quite a
stable platform. If he has to look at alternatives I would suggest
Foundry, either the RX-8, MLX-8, or XMR-8000 (depending on requirements)
for comparable models to the MX480.
Regards,
Chris
