On 14/05/2008, at 10:37 AM, Phil Bedard wrote:
The 5260 is actually a decent NMS which is something I never thought I'd say about a NMS, although the pricing model isn't very good.
Yeah, I'll agree with that. I've raved about the 5620SAM (not to be confused with the 5620NM, which manage ATM etc. boxes) for a while. It's the only NMS I've seen [1] that exposes /everything/ to the end user. If someone updates stuff on the CLI, a trap is send, and the graphical display updates within seconds, even for what you'd think were really obscure things. The dev work for these products is done in parallel I believe, instead of as a separate product line. As with most vendor specific NMSs, you want to use 7x50 boxes exclusively for a certain function. I.e. 7x50 only boxes on the edge. The 7x50's have some kinda weird ways of doing things, and you really want to do a training course to understand how they work - they are quite a big paradigm change, and you'll end up doing things sub- optimally unless you understand how they're supposed to function. The major thing is the config is service oriented. I.e. on a traditional box, you configure a bunch of parameters all over the place, and a certain service pops out. With these Alcatel-Lucent boxes, you configure a service, and the parameters are implied somewhat. Interop is fine, but you'll find that many of the knobs are called different things to what you're used to - mostly as a function of that paradigm change. Ask for a v6 roadmap. Last time I looked (~ a year ago) there were some strange limitations, for example, a surprisingly small max v6 routing table. -- Nathan Ward [1] Admittedly, my experience with other NMS's is heavily tarnished by Dorado RMC. Please hold while I hug myself and rock back and forward in my chair for a bit.