If the customer's site goes offline, that is their problem. A CPE device is still a CPE device, no matter how smart it is. Setup IS-IS, BGP to route servers, LDP + MPLS if you don't go the VXLAN route, and that's it.

So you have two issues here:

• If it's a pure CPE device running IS-IS, LDP, RSVP-TE, SR-MPLS, BGP, e.t.c. on the core-facing side, you have a problem if the customer can manage the router, and potentially introduces badness into your routed core.

• If it's a u-PE co-located at the customer site and it goes down, you've just isolated part of your ring because, well, the customer's cleaners decided they needed the router's socket for their equipment, because it's closer than the one they usually use.

As a bonus, if it's a u-PE that you need physical access to for whatever reason, but you can't because the customer does not treat their site like a typical data centre with whom you have a contract, that will be another avenue of pleasure & joy.

As a bonus bonus, if it's a u-PE and you decide you are done with the site and want to decommission it, the customer can deny you entry into the site.

Yes, these are real problems. Yes, these real problems have really happened. You are not my competitor, so I don't wish them upon you.

I know Ciena's can do that on their more expensive 39xx models.

Unless things changed, my understanding is Ciena's implementation is MPLS-TP. Does anybody know if they now have full support for IP/MPLS in the way we have it with real router vendors?

There are a few tier 1's...

Don't know what "teir 1's" means :-).

that have delivered Ethernet transport circuits on those exact boxes in the field as I speak. It works very well.

Well, the ME3600X/3800X has been EoL for quite some time now. But yes, it would work, especially if you don't run BGP on it.

I also agree with your stance on Broadcom, it's hard to come up with alternatives that are not ADVA/Ciena/Cisco/RAD.

So the optical OEM's are not generally good options for routers of any kind. That knocks Adva, Ciena, Infinera, Xtera, Tejas, e.t.c., off the list.

Nokia do have a decent IP/MPLS platform, thanks for ALU. But the Metro-E boxes they position for that segment - the 7250 IXR-e, IXR-s and IXR-x - are also using Broadcom.

Not interested in Huawei.

I like Mikrotik, but only as a self-managed CPE, and not for a service provider backbone.

Arrcus are currently focusing on the data centre.

Arista aren't interested in the Metro-E space.

HP/3Com, Dell, Extreme - very unknown quantities that I'm not motivated to look into.

At the moment, the battle is really etween Cisco's NCS540 and Juniper's ACX7100/7200 platforms. Both are Broadcom-based, but I think Juniper have the slightly better idea in terms of how much they can squeeze out of Broadcom re: how much one can touch a customer's packets.

Mark.