On Mon, 16 Aug 2004, Deepak Jain wrote:
Other than packet buffer depths and some theoretical ACL limits, is there any reason why a 7600 network would be worse than a 12000 built one? MTBF, reconvergence and other issues should all be pretty nice and like others have mentioned packet buffers are not necessarily a good thing <tm>. Throughput-wise, a 7600 should be able to hold its own against a 12000 provided we are talking about 40Gb/s blades and SUP720s.
I've had this discussion a few times with people working at cisco. The answers I usually get has to do with how well it handles overload, ie what happens when ports go full. If you want to be able to do single TCP streams at 5 gigabit/s over your long-haul 10gig network that is already carrying a lot of traffic, you need deep packet buffers. If your fastest customer is less than 1gig and your network is 10gig, you do not. So, if I were to provision a transatlantic line that cost me a lot of money, I would use a GSR or a juniper. If I were to provision a 80km dark fiber between two places where I already own 24 pairs, there is a wide choice in equipment. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se