It's not 100 percent about cost, but cost is a big concern. My minimum requirement is a box that has 4 10G ports, and supports G.8032. MPLS / Segment routing would be nice, but not required.
So far, I have yet to find anything comparable to Ciena' 3924. It's got 4 10G SFP+, and then 4 1G SFP's. Hardware costs about $550 new, and their mandatory base software plus the 10G licenses add about $400, bringing the total cost to $950. Then, they have an optional MPLS / Segment Routing advanced layer 3 feature set, costing at least another $200, bringing the total cost to $1150. Anyone know something close in pricing to compare to? Note this is general Ciena pricing, nothing special. Mikrotik has a couple of options below this $1000 price point, but that would not work. On Mon, May 31, 2021 at 4:03 PM Adam Thompson <athomp...@merlin.mb.ca> wrote: > EXOS is a perfectly good OS that bears absolutely *no* resemblance to > anything else you've ever used in your career. If you start from scratch > without training courses, you're looking at wasting 6 months (maybe more) > just learning the OS well enough to figure out how to configure your > desired deployment. Then you get to the usual month or so of fine-tuning > required that every product needs. > > Given how many companies will pay for training nowadays, it's a relevant > concern IMHO. > > Now that I'm used to EXOS, I like it. But I would never recommend an EXOS > newbie start a project with a product that runs EXOS, without some > jump-start training. It really is/was that painful. It's like giving a > 100% Windows admin a UNIX box to get the new service running on, with no > training. (Or vice-versa.) > > NOTE: Extreme's goal (supposedly targeting 2021) was to ship one common > hardware platform that could run any of their 3 OSes. I don't know if > they're achieved it, but generally speaking, for any EXOS box, there's > two more products, one running the Nortel/Avaya OS and one IronWare > (Foundry/Broadcom), both of which are fairly "normal". > > -Adam > > *Adam Thompson* > Consultant, Infrastructure Services > [image: 1593169877849] > 100 - 135 Innovation Drive > Winnipeg, MB, R3T 6A8 > (204) 977-6824 or 1-800-430-6404 (MB only) > athomp...@merlin.mb.ca > www.merlin.mb.ca > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Colton Conor <colton.co...@gmail.com> > *Sent:* May 31, 2021 15:30 > *To:* Adam Thompson <athomp...@merlin.mb.ca> > *Cc:* NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> > *Subject:* Re: MPLS/MEF Switches and NIDs > > Adam. > > When you say "Beware using any EXOS-based product (anything that starts > with "X") unless you're already familiar with EXOS!" Are you saying stay > away from this line completely, or what do you mean by this statement. I > have heard good things about Extreme for deploying service provider G.8032 > and MPLS functions. > > Yes, I was aware of https://www.mef.net/certify/technology-registry/ and > have gone through pretty much every vendor looking at their solutions. > Extreme for example is not listed at all, so I guess they didn't want to > pay those fees! There are quite a few Chinese vendors we can't use. > > > On Mon, May 31, 2021 at 12:44 PM Adam Thompson <athomp...@merlin.mb.ca> > wrote: > > Extreme has excellent MEF implementations. I've never used their MPLS > implementations, but it's definitely there on, I think, all their > products. I only have the X620 model in my network, which may or may not > work for you. Beware using any EXOS-based product (anything that starts > with "X") unless you're already familiar with EXOS! I cannot emphasise > this enough! > Extreme's other product lines come from Nortel/Avaya and Broadcom > heritage, and also have good MEF implementations (and more-or-less-sane > OSes). They have MPLS support, but again, no experience with it. > I can't give much advice on pricing as I get both edu & gov discounts, but > they are competitive with Arista and Cisco when we go to RFP. > > Also, Juniper's MX (and maybe PTX?) families support MEF if that's a hard > requirement. I know *some* but not all EX switches have had both MEF and > MPLS, too. Beware many EX models have pretty minimalist MPLS > implementations (e.g. no VPLS). Agreed on their pricing, though, which is > why I don't have any 🙂. But for 4x10G the MX104 is a very nice box - if > you can afford it. > > Lastly, have you seen https://www.mef.net/certify/technology-registry/ ? > > -Adam > > *Adam Thompson* > Consultant, Infrastructure Services > [image: 1593169877849] > 100 - 135 Innovation Drive > Winnipeg, MB, R3T 6A8 > (204) 977-6824 or 1-800-430-6404 (MB only) > athomp...@merlin.mb.ca > www.merlin.mb.ca > > ------------------------------ > *From:* NANOG <nanog-bounces+athompson=merlin.mb...@nanog.org> on behalf > of Colton Conor <colton.co...@gmail.com> > *Sent:* May 26, 2021 11:39 > *To:* NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> > *Subject:* MPLS/MEF Switches and NIDs > > For MPLS and MEF switches, I know Juniper, Cisco, and Nokia are commonly > talked about on this list. However, I was wondering if anyone has > evaluated other brands? We are not interested in looking at chinese based > vendors, so ZTE and Huawei are not an option. Anyone else worth looking > into? > > We have used Juniper's ACX line primarily, but there is a big gap in their > product line. The ACX2200 has only two 10G ports. The next jump up from > there is the ACX710 with 24 10G ports. They have nothing in between that > has 4-12 10G ports. Not to mention, Juniper is very proud price wise. We > are looking for cost efficient 10G NIDs with at least 4 10G ports on them > and aggregation boxes with at least 12 10G ports on them with 25g/100G > uplinks. > > Ciena seems to have multiple options available with Segment Routing, MPLS, > and streaming telemetry support. I am probably most interested in > what Ciena has to offer. Has anyone deployed the 3000 or 5000 product line > of Ciena? How does it compare to Juniper? The Ciena 3924 is sub $1000 for > example, and has 4 10G ports on it. > > Adva has quite a few options as well, but I don't think their routing > stack is as strong as Ciena's. > > Tejas was an unknown player to me, but they seem to have a couple of > options that fit the bill. Price wise, I have heard the run circles around > everyone. > > RAD has some options, but their pricing looks much higher than Ciena. > > Accedian looked interesting, but it seems they don't make aggregation > switches, only NIDs. > > ECI Telecom / Ribbon seems to have some options, but I have not talked to > them. > > What does Nokia and Cisco have in this space, and price wise is it going > to compare to these less known vendors? > > > > > > > >
