I think that's what Jason just said. :-)
On 2010-10-20, at 5:24 PM, Ramanpreet Singh wrote: > 7600's/ASR 1k > > Have you looked in to Ciso ME 3600X/ME 3800X series? > > Without a bias these are the top notch products in the market for Metro E. > > -Raman > > On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Jason Lixfeld <ja...@lixfeld.ca> wrote: >> On 2010-10-20, at 11:24 AM, Eric Merkel wrote: >> >>> Any suggestions, success or horror stories are appreciated. ;) >> >> I've been going through pretty much the same exercise looking for a decent >> PE for almost two years. Our requirements were for a PE device that had >> between 12-24 ports (in a perfect world, mixed mode 10/100/1000 copper + >> SFP), 10G uplinks, EoMPLS, MPLS VPN, DHCP server, port-protect/UNI (or >> similar) capabilities, DC power and a small footprint (1RU) >> >> Of all the ones we looked at (Juniper, Cisco, Extreme, Brocade, MRV, >> Alcatel) initially, MRV was the only contender. The rest either didn't have >> a product, or their offering didn't meet various points within our criteria. >> >> As such, we bought a bunch of MRVs in early 2009 and after four months of >> trial and error, we yanked every single one out of the network. From a >> physical perspective, the box was perfect. Port density was perfect, >> mixed-mode ports, promised a 10G uplink product soon, size was perfect, >> power was perfect, we thought we had it nailed. Unfortunately there are no >> words to describe how terrible the software was. The CLI took a little >> getting used to, which is pretty much par for the course when you're dealing >> with a new vendor, but the code itself was just absolutely broken, >> everywhere. Duplex issues, LDP constantly crashing taking the box with it, >> OSPF issues, the list went on and on. To their credit, they flew engineers >> up from the US and they were quite committed to making stuff work, but at >> the end of the day, they just couldn't make it go. We pulled the plug in >> May 2009 and I haven't heard a thing about their product since then, so >> maybe they've got it all together. >> >> While meeting with Juniper a few months later about a different project, >> they said they had a product that might fit our needs. The EX4200. As >> such, we had a few of these loaned to our lab for a few months to put >> through their paces, from a features and interoperability perspective. They >> work[1] and they seem to work well. The show stopper was provisioning[1] >> and size. The box is massive, albeit it is still 1U. >> >> [1] (I'm not a Juniper guy, so my recollection on specific terms and jargon >> may be a bit off kilter) they only support ccc, which makes provisioning an >> absolute nightmare. From my experience with Cisco and MRV, you only have to >> configure the EoMPLS vc. On the EX4200, you have to create the LSPs as >> well. To get a ccc working, the JunOS code block was far larger and much >> more involved per vc than the single line Cisco equivalent. To create the >> LSPs was, I believe, two more equally large sized code blocks. At the end >> of the day, it was just too involved. We needed something simpler. >> >> About the same time that we started to evaluate the EX4200, Cisco had >> pitched us on their (then alpha) Whales platform. It looked promising (MRV >> still had the best form factor) and we expressed our interest in getting a >> beta unit in as soon as we were able to. This is now known as the ME3600 >> and ME3800 platform and we've been testing a beta unit in our lab for the >> past few months. This is the platform we have chosen. It's not perfect, >> but our gripes have more to do with form factor (it's 1RU, but it's a bit >> deeper than what we'd like) and port densities (no mixed mode ports) than >> software or features. We've been pretty pleased with it's feature set and >> performance, but this hasn't seen any real world action, so who knows how >> that will turn out. >> >> If you're asking more about a P router or P/PE hybrid, we've also just >> ordered a few ASR9000s under try-and-buy as P/PEs to close up the chains of >> ME3600s that will start to be deployed in our remote sites. A Juniper MX >> would certainly work well here too, and it seems to interoperate rather well >> with the ME3600s, so that's certainly an option, but for us, we think it >> will work more in our favor to go with the ASRs in the core, but if not, >> we'd ship them back under the try-and-buy and get Junipers instead. >> >> Hope that helps. >> >
