Hi, Chris You wrote: > I need to transparently (especially LACP frames) transport a gigabit > ethernet link with at least 1500 MTU over either IP or Ethernet. Jumbo > frames are enabled on the L2 transport backbone. While I need "full" > (some encap overhead will be acceptable) GigE wire speed, encryption > is unnecessary. > Can anyone suggest a product -ideally some low-maintenance, > high-reliability, perhaps ASIC-based hardware- that can do this?
You definitely want hardware forwarding well before the Gig-E traffic level, especially if you plan to have several of them. The MPLS capable Extreme X-series boxes have a feature that can do this well (vpws) and are the cheapest cost-per-port that I can find at the 10GE and 1GE levels. You're looking at the X460 models for Gig copper/SFP, or X670 for 10GE capable SFP+. They are great for deployments which don't need a large number of MPLS LSPs across the platform, or a large number of VPLS instances terminating on the same box (point to point ethernet links that you configure burn two such VPLS instances). Based on what you have written, if there is nothing more complicated with your requirement, I would probably go for the boxes. They don't do so well on high-reliability depending on what you mean - the boxes I run have a reliable history, but they don't have a redundant control plane, redundant power supplies, etc. There can be management-plane limitations sometimes (the config format and cli hurt, and the otherwise great automation isn't complete in the pseudo wire area). There are some other weird limitations which have hurt me on some designs (inability to wrap a single vlan into many vpls instances on a single port is one use case I really want). I run two networks that offer e-line services, one uses Extreme, the other does not. Talk to me off list any time if you want more information. Best wishes, Andy _______________________________________________ swinog mailing list [email protected] http://lists.swinog.ch/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swinog
