I'm faced with a difficult decision. I work for a large multi-node regional ISP (and Cisco shop). In our largest nodes we've found the Cisco 7500 series routers to be at the end of their useful life due to the throughput generated by POS OC-3 feeds and 10,000+ broadband users whose traffic needs to be moved out of the node. Short of building a farm of 7500's the need to upgrade seems clear.
Will the interfaces likely continue to be POS OC-3 ? What is the growing path for this: POS OC-12, GigE ?
But where to go? The Cisco GSR platform seems a logical choice, but their new 7600 series units are attractive for their cost. Juniper may
also
have a place at this end of the processing spectrum. I'd also like to ensure that the new platform supports doing CAR and ACLs at line rate, given the client base.
The GSR line-cards to what you want would need to be the "edge" ones, based on either Engine 3 or Engine 4+. 7600 requires WAN cards to support POS, I think GSR and Juniper M are more likely candidates for this design. Rubens