Tony Li <tli@juniper.net> writes:
A SONET MPLS switch makes for a very interesting exchange.
Yes, for all the reasons you outlined, and because we've been talking about it for a couple years, this what I would deploy in the short run if I were interested in getting large-provider business. Having a circuit per peer has some advantages with respect to failure modes, but is expensive. Assuming that there is still a per bit per second per kilometre cost even for inhouse applications, if a reliable alternative existed, I expect that would be used, particularly as the growth curve of inter-provider traffic necessitates expansion of the private peering circuits. I would hope that people at Sprint, UUWHO (and ANS and MCI) and the various other places using private peering points are thinking about migrating from a "you buy one circuit i will buy one circuit" model to a more general "we will run an exchange point here, you bring circuits to us; you run an exchange point there, we will bring circuits to you, they will be running an exchange point there we will both bring circuits to that" one, although actually making a decision to do this would be dependent on costs and the reliability of new big fast routers and MPLS implementations and interoperability. One fat physical circuit that buys you N peers is probably going to be cheaper than N not-so-fat physical circuits at one peer each, in line costs, manageability and capital expenses (router ports etc.) Of course, the key downside to using a SONET MPLS switch/router is back to scaling. A question for you Tony. What does one do when one has an N port MPLS switch/router and has filled all N ports with traffic? Consider that each of the N ports will become fuller and that there will probably be a desire or requirement for N+1 ports with more to come. The lesson of the Gigaswitches and the ATM counterparts is that scaling beyond a single switch is hard. I don't have an answer, given what I know and can imagine about near-term technology (as opposed to stuff I want you and Crashco to build :) )
the forseeable future.
How long is that these days anyway? Anyway, other than the "what do you do other than give up on port density when you have more traffic or connections than one MPLS switch can handle" concern, I am in complete agreement with you, surprise surprise. Sean.