[NANOG]Hardware for MPLS/SR network
Hi! I’m looking for equipment to build a 100G MPLS/SR network. This won’t be a large setup—likely around six PE routers connected in a 100G ring, with distances ranging from 100 km to 400 km. These routers will also need to aggregate local links from 10G up to 100G. They don't need to carry a full table. Given that I’m aiming to keep costs down (an impossible equation? 😊), what manufacturers would be worth considering today? Is refurbished hardware still a viable option, considering licensing and other factors? Mikrotik’s CCR line is quite affordable, but would it be capable of handling a PE role while aggregating multiple link speeds? Buffering? Other options? Br Johan
Do you need full tables? Will merchant silicon (switch/routers) be sufficient (if you are only transporting L2 for example) or do you need full capability of a custom silicon (Nokia/Juniper) router. You mention Mikrotik, you would not get a single vendor silicon box (like a Nokia SR-1) for the cost of Mikrotik and there is a good reason for that. It really comes down to what the budget/use case is. -----Original Message----- From: john doe <johan.borch@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, 3 March 2025 10:17 am To: nanog@lists.nanog.org Subject: [NANOG]Hardware for MPLS/SR network Hi! I’m looking for equipment to build a 100G MPLS/SR network. This won’t be a large setup—likely around six PE routers connected in a 100G ring, with distances ranging from 100 km to 400 km. These routers will also need to aggregate local links from 10G up to 100G. They don't need to carry a full table. Given that I’m aiming to keep costs down (an impossible equation? 😊), what manufacturers would be worth considering today? Is refurbished hardware still a viable option, considering licensing and other factors? Mikrotik’s CCR line is quite affordable, but would it be capable of handling a PE role while aggregating multiple link speeds? Buffering? Other options? Br Johan _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/B7LKQ2E2...
Full tables are not needed, this will mainly be used for L3VPNs and L2-transport. Mikrotik was only one of the options, we have looked at Juniper for example and this was more to check if there are other smart solutions out there, other than the traditional vendors :) Johan On Sun, Mar 2, 2025 at 10:42 PM Tony Wicks <tony@wicks.co.nz> wrote:
Do you need full tables? Will merchant silicon (switch/routers) be sufficient (if you are only transporting L2 for example) or do you need full capability of a custom silicon (Nokia/Juniper) router. You mention Mikrotik, you would not get a single vendor silicon box (like a Nokia SR-1) for the cost of Mikrotik and there is a good reason for that. It really comes down to what the budget/use case is.
-----Original Message----- From: john doe <johan.borch@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, 3 March 2025 10:17 am To: nanog@lists.nanog.org Subject: [NANOG]Hardware for MPLS/SR network
Hi!
I’m looking for equipment to build a 100G MPLS/SR network. This won’t be a large setup—likely around six PE routers connected in a 100G ring, with distances ranging from 100 km to 400 km. These routers will also need to aggregate local links from 10G up to 100G. They don't need to carry a full table.
Given that I’m aiming to keep costs down (an impossible equation? 😊), what manufacturers would be worth considering today?
Is refurbished hardware still a viable option, considering licensing and other factors?
Mikrotik’s CCR line is quite affordable, but would it be capable of handling a PE role while aggregating multiple link speeds? Buffering?
Other options?
Br Johan _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/B7LKQ2E2...
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/Y22HT4RC...
Hi. Would recommend taking a look at: Arista DCS-7280SR-48C6 (6x 100G + 48x 10G SFP+) available at around USD 2,000 (eBay) Arista DCS-7280QR-C36 (12x 100G + 24x 40G (can be split to 4x10, or use QSFP-SFP+ adapters for single SFP+) available for around USD 1,800 (eBay) There is many more models available. Arista is good HW, supports MPLS and VXLAN. --- -------------------------- 100TB.se Dedicated servers for all! On 2025-03-02 22:16, john doe wrote:
Hi!
I’m looking for equipment to build a 100G MPLS/SR network. This won’t be a large setup—likely around six PE routers connected in a 100G ring, with distances ranging from 100 km to 400 km. These routers will also need to aggregate local links from 10G up to 100G. They don't need to carry a full table.
Given that I’m aiming to keep costs down (an impossible equation? 😊), what manufacturers would be worth considering today?
Is refurbished hardware still a viable option, considering licensing and other factors?
Mikrotik’s CCR line is quite affordable, but would it be capable of handling a PE role while aggregating multiple link speeds? Buffering?
Other options?
Br Johan _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/B7LKQ2E2...
+1 On 3/2/25 22:43, Fredrik Holmqvist / I2B wrote:
Hi.
Would recommend taking a look at: Arista DCS-7280SR-48C6 (6x 100G + 48x 10G SFP+) available at around USD 2,000 (eBay) Arista DCS-7280QR-C36 (12x 100G + 24x 40G (can be split to 4x10, or use QSFP-SFP+ adapters for single SFP+) available for around USD 1,800 (eBay)
There is many more models available. Arista is good HW, supports MPLS and VXLAN.
--- -------------------------- 100TB.se Dedicated servers for all!
On 2025-03-02 22:16, john doe wrote:
Hi!
I’m looking for equipment to build a 100G MPLS/SR network. This won’t be a large setup—likely around six PE routers connected in a 100G ring, with distances ranging from 100 km to 400 km. These routers will also need to aggregate local links from 10G up to 100G. They don't need to carry a full table.
Given that I’m aiming to keep costs down (an impossible equation? 😊), what manufacturers would be worth considering today?
Is refurbished hardware still a viable option, considering licensing and other factors?
Mikrotik’s CCR line is quite affordable, but would it be capable of handling a PE role while aggregating multiple link speeds? Buffering?
Other options?
Br Johan _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/ B7LKQ2E2RFAR4BERAO4DC5RWK6ALMNV3/
NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/ nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/GZRMDKXW2WSY3JNB4HKTEVVCKI722GYP/
On Sun, 2 Mar 2025 at 22:43, Fredrik Holmqvist / I2B <fredrik@i2b.se> wrote:
Hi.
Would recommend taking a look at: Arista DCS-7280SR-48C6 (6x 100G + 48x 10G SFP+) available at around USD 2,000 (eBay) Arista DCS-7280QR-C36 (12x 100G + 24x 40G (can be split to 4x10, or use QSFP-SFP+ adapters for single SFP+) available for around USD 1,800 (eBay)
There is many more models available. Arista is good HW, supports MPLS and VXLAN.
Can a non-Arista customer (without support contract) access docs, KB, bug database and software updates just by making an account on arista.com or is a support contract always required? Thanks, Lukas
Hi. You can find the software by some googling. :) There is lots of guides out there, Arista have the EOS software manual online without login. Also lots of good YouTube courses available for Arista. If you worked with Cisco, it will be no hassle at all. We migrated from Cisco to Arista with minimal changes. Arista takes many Cisco commands and convert them to Aristas commands/syntaxes We also considered MikroTik when looking for a new platform. Found cheap Aristas, bought a couple as test (32x 40G for USD 3-400/ea), got them, booted up, played around, then looking for more Aristas that fit our needs. We have since upgraded and just started using VXLAN (which was not planned from the beginning, but it's there and it solved a customer requirement :) ). -------------------------- 100TB.se Dedicated servers for all! On 2025-03-03 14:20, Lukas Tribus via NANOG wrote:
On Sun, 2 Mar 2025 at 22:43, Fredrik Holmqvist / I2B <fredrik@i2b.se> wrote:
Hi.
Would recommend taking a look at: Arista DCS-7280SR-48C6 (6x 100G + 48x 10G SFP+) available at around USD 2,000 (eBay) Arista DCS-7280QR-C36 (12x 100G + 24x 40G (can be split to 4x10, or use QSFP-SFP+ adapters for single SFP+) available for around USD 1,800 (eBay)
There is many more models available. Arista is good HW, supports MPLS and VXLAN.
Can a non-Arista customer (without support contract) access docs, KB, bug database and software updates just by making an account on arista.com or is a support contract always required?
Thanks,
Lukas _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/LODOO3XU...
On 3/2/25 23:16, john doe wrote:
I’m looking for equipment to build a 100G MPLS/SR network. This won’t be a large setup—likely around six PE routers connected in a 100G ring, with distances ranging from 100 km to 400 km. These routers will also need to aggregate local links from 10G up to 100G. They don't need to carry a full table.
I'll ask about the WAN side of things. To get 100G across 400km, you can either lease an EoDWDM circuit from an optical carrier, or go with IPoDWDM and stick one of two options into the routers at either end: * A 100G QSFP28 ZR+ coherent pluggable, or * A 400G QSFP-DD ZR+ coherent pluggable. On an amplified optical network, the 400G QSFP-DD plug can be modulated to run at either 100G, 200G, 300G or 400G, depending how close to 400km you want to get. Since you only need 100G Day One, that should be very easy with such a plug at 400km. But because it's a QSFP-DD plug, you can scale up to 200G, 300G or 400G in the future. If this makes sense, be sure to choose a router that comes with 400G QSFP-DD ports, then. There might not be any technical benefit to running a 100G QSFP28 plug in an IPoDWDM scenario compared to just leasing a regular 100G EoDWDM circuit from your favourite optical provider. However, if you take it as an IPoDWDM service, you can easily switch to a 400G QSFP-DD plug in the future without having to involve them as much, or at all. But you would need to coordinate with them for the initial build, provided they can actually offer the service. Mark.
participants (6)
-
Bryan Holloway -
Fredrik Holmqvist / I2B -
john doe -
Lukas Tribus -
Mark Tinka -
Tony Wicks