Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space? Need a full MPLS stack.
Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES. -----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of David Bass Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:04 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space? Need a full MPLS stack.
If you need high-er density 10GE. Consider an Juniper ACX5048. Great edge box, MPLS features, it's essentially just a QFX with repartitioned CAM / some tricks to get the most out of the Trident II chipset. Won't do a bunch of things, so make sure it's exactly what you need or you'll burn yourself YMMV. On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:50 AM Dan Spataro <dspataro@corp.nac.net> wrote:
Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES.
-----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of David Bass Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:04 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Thanks for all the insight everyone...very helpful discussion! Has anyone see the SRX deployed in these situations? We have been talking to Juniper about the ACX, and they seem to be pushing it as a Metro E, or in situations where you don't need a lot of features (like a L2 agg point for wireless).
On Feb 6, 2016, at 5:39 AM, Cameron Ferdinands <cameron@jferdinands.com> wrote:
If you need high-er density 10GE. Consider an Juniper ACX5048.
Great edge box, MPLS features, it's essentially just a QFX with repartitioned CAM / some tricks to get the most out of the Trident II chipset.
Won't do a bunch of things, so make sure it's exactly what you need or you'll burn yourself YMMV.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:50 AM Dan Spataro <dspataro@corp.nac.net> wrote: Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES.
-----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of David Bass Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:04 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Why not consider an EX4500? On Feb 6, 2016 12:24 PM, "Cameron Ferdinands" <cameron@jferdinands.com> wrote:
If you need high-er density 10GE. Consider an Juniper ACX5048.
Great edge box, MPLS features, it's essentially just a QFX with repartitioned CAM / some tricks to get the most out of the Trident II chipset.
Won't do a bunch of things, so make sure it's exactly what you need or you'll burn yourself YMMV.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:50 AM Dan Spataro <dspataro@corp.nac.net> wrote:
Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES.
-----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of David Bass Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:04 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Yeah, on the list...well the 4600 is since it's somewhat the replacement to the 4500/4550.
On Feb 6, 2016, at 1:55 PM, Josh Reynolds <josh@kyneticwifi.com> wrote:
Why not consider an EX4500?
On Feb 6, 2016 12:24 PM, "Cameron Ferdinands" <cameron@jferdinands.com> wrote: If you need high-er density 10GE. Consider an Juniper ACX5048.
Great edge box, MPLS features, it's essentially just a QFX with repartitioned CAM / some tricks to get the most out of the Trident II chipset.
Won't do a bunch of things, so make sure it's exactly what you need or you'll burn yourself YMMV.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:50 AM Dan Spataro <dspataro@corp.nac.net> wrote:
Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES.
-----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of David Bass Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:04 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Newer, more expensive, more bugs. 4500 is cheap on the secondary market. On Feb 6, 2016 3:38 PM, "David Bass" <davidbass570@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah, on the list...well the 4600 is since it's somewhat the replacement to the 4500/4550.
On Feb 6, 2016, at 1:55 PM, Josh Reynolds <josh@kyneticwifi.com> wrote:
Why not consider an EX4500? On Feb 6, 2016 12:24 PM, "Cameron Ferdinands" <cameron@jferdinands.com> wrote:
If you need high-er density 10GE. Consider an Juniper ACX5048.
Great edge box, MPLS features, it's essentially just a QFX with repartitioned CAM / some tricks to get the most out of the Trident II chipset.
Won't do a bunch of things, so make sure it's exactly what you need or you'll burn yourself YMMV.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:50 AM Dan Spataro <dspataro@corp.nac.net> wrote:
Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES.
-----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of David Bass Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:04 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
I encourage my competitors to scoff at the secondary market. :-) ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh Reynolds" <josh@kyneticwifi.com> To: "David Bass" <davidbass570@gmail.com> Cc: "Cameron Ferdinands" <cameron@jferdinands.com>, nanog@nanog.org Sent: Saturday, February 6, 2016 3:41:50 PM Subject: Re: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge Newer, more expensive, more bugs. 4500 is cheap on the secondary market. On Feb 6, 2016 3:38 PM, "David Bass" <davidbass570@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah, on the list...well the 4600 is since it's somewhat the replacement to the 4500/4550.
On Feb 6, 2016, at 1:55 PM, Josh Reynolds <josh@kyneticwifi.com> wrote:
Why not consider an EX4500? On Feb 6, 2016 12:24 PM, "Cameron Ferdinands" <cameron@jferdinands.com> wrote:
If you need high-er density 10GE. Consider an Juniper ACX5048.
Great edge box, MPLS features, it's essentially just a QFX with repartitioned CAM / some tricks to get the most out of the Trident II chipset.
Won't do a bunch of things, so make sure it's exactly what you need or you'll burn yourself YMMV.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:50 AM Dan Spataro <dspataro@corp.nac.net> wrote:
Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES.
-----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of David Bass Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:04 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
On 6/Feb/16 23:41, Josh Reynolds wrote:
Newer, more expensive, more bugs. 4500 is cheap on the secondary market.
The EX4600 is actually just a shy cheaper than the EX4550. We are looking at it not because the EX4550 is a bad box, but because Juniper are focusing development on the EX4600 instead (much like Cisco are doing between the ME3600X and ASR920). You lose 8x ports on the EX4600, though, if coming from the EX4550. May or may not be an issue for you. I wouldn't look at the EX4500. Too big and old now. Mark.
Hi David, Le 02/02/2016 22:03, David Bass a écrit :
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X?
I'd rather use the ASR920, the ME3600X is too deep to fit in some PoPs. It also has a higher 10G port count. Alternatively, on low cost deployments, I used Mikrotik CCR1016-12S-1S+. Lower density, though. For higher 10G density, I like the Juniper EX4550. But when you have to stick to a limited number of vendors, I guess you could consider the Catalyst 6840 line. Never had one to play with, though. I'm currently evaluating another alternative : the Nokia-Alcatel-Lucent ISAM 7360FX chassis (4 to 16 slots) with either P2P (36 client lines per slot) or PON (up to 16 ports/slot), and a Mikrotik CCR1072 right behind to encapsulate L2 circuits. It's, by far, the denser and cheapest way to provide more than a few hundred 100M-1Gbps circuits per PoP. Best regards, -- Jérôme Nicolle
Jerome, We use some of the 7360's, but not the Mikrotik. Why not use ALU's CPE devices if using the 7360? On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 4:19 PM, Jérôme Nicolle <jerome@ceriz.fr> wrote:
Hi David,
Le 02/02/2016 22:03, David Bass a écrit :
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X?
I'd rather use the ASR920, the ME3600X is too deep to fit in some PoPs. It also has a higher 10G port count.
Alternatively, on low cost deployments, I used Mikrotik CCR1016-12S-1S+. Lower density, though.
For higher 10G density, I like the Juniper EX4550. But when you have to stick to a limited number of vendors, I guess you could consider the Catalyst 6840 line. Never had one to play with, though.
I'm currently evaluating another alternative : the Nokia-Alcatel-Lucent ISAM 7360FX chassis (4 to 16 slots) with either P2P (36 client lines per slot) or PON (up to 16 ports/slot), and a Mikrotik CCR1072 right behind to encapsulate L2 circuits. It's, by far, the denser and cheapest way to provide more than a few hundred 100M-1Gbps circuits per PoP.
Best regards,
-- Jérôme Nicolle
Le 02/02/2016 23:38, Colton Conor a écrit :
We use some of the 7360's, but not the Mikrotik. Why not use ALU's CPE devices if using the 7360?
I'd use ALU's ONTs (there's now a SFP GPON stick available too) or RGWs on the client side, the Mikrotik here is the PE router, because ALU's FANT-F card lacks EoMPLS/ATOM/VPLS/E-VPN capabilities. I only use QinQ on its 4*10Gbps uplink ports. Any 80Gbps capable PE router would be fine, though. I choose the Mikrotik CRR1072 for its price and density. -- Jérôme Nicolle
Thanks to all that have replied! Yes, I just started looking at the ASR9xx series of routers as well...seems like a likely alternative if we go with Cisco.
On Feb 2, 2016, at 5:19 PM, Jérôme Nicolle <jerome@ceriz.fr> wrote:
Hi David,
Le 02/02/2016 22:03, David Bass a écrit :
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X?
I'd rather use the ASR920, the ME3600X is too deep to fit in some PoPs. It also has a higher 10G port count.
Alternatively, on low cost deployments, I used Mikrotik CCR1016-12S-1S+. Lower density, though.
For higher 10G density, I like the Juniper EX4550. But when you have to stick to a limited number of vendors, I guess you could consider the Catalyst 6840 line. Never had one to play with, though.
I'm currently evaluating another alternative : the Nokia-Alcatel-Lucent ISAM 7360FX chassis (4 to 16 slots) with either P2P (36 client lines per slot) or PON (up to 16 ports/slot), and a Mikrotik CCR1072 right behind to encapsulate L2 circuits. It's, by far, the denser and cheapest way to provide more than a few hundred 100M-1Gbps circuits per PoP.
Best regards,
-- Jérôme Nicolle
Hi, The ZTE 5900E series has a full MPLS stack and is solid hardware. Much cheaper than Cisco and Juniper. http://wwwen.zte.com.cn/en/products/bearer/data_communication/ethernet_switc... Regards, Baldur On 2 February 2016 at 22:03, David Bass <davidbass570@gmail.com> wrote:
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
David Bass wrote:
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Before choosing a box, you need to figure out: - how many ports you need, and of what speed - how much you're prepared to pay - how much rack real estate you're ok about dedicating per box - what sort of mpls features you need (vpls / l2vpn-pw / l3vpn / 6pe / 6vpe, etc) - whether rich qos is a requirement - whether you're ever going to need good quality LAG / ECMP support on the platform - what vendor software you're happy to work with - whether you're ok with per port licensing Typically the features that fall by the wayside first are: reasonable port buffers, qos knobs and decent lag/ecmp hashing support for mpls packets. The qos/port buffers tend to be more of a problem on the 10G platforms, but you didn't state whether you were interested in 1G or 10G, or how many ports you were looking for per box. E.g. the production evolution for the me3600 is the asr920, which is better is most aspects except for shared buffer space. This means that the me3600 has better qos support, if deeper buffers are what's important. OTOH, if you need to do fine-grained qos based on ACLs or ports, then this platform isn't for you. Most smaller mpls boxes don't load balance well over LAGs or ECMP because they lack the ability to inspect deep into the packet to get enough flow-aware entropy together to build a reasonable hash. If all your PE devices support flow-aware transport (rfc6391), you're fine, but very few smaller mpls boxes support this feature. If 10G is a requirement, then you need to make a choice between one of the merchant chipsets (e.g. broadcom trident range) and vendor specific chipsets. Many of the larger vendors support the merchant chipsets these days for 10G access, but feature support can be varied. E.g. some devices don't support vpls and never will. Some are a bit behind on product development and don't yet support features like l3vpn or 6PE or 6VPE, even though they are roadmapped. Nick
I see Cisco and Juniper mentioned here, but what about all the smart NID companies out there? I found these of MEF list: Accedian, Altera, BTI Systems, Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/ciena>), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/cisco>), Cyan, FibroLAN, Huawei, Infinera (Nasdaq: INFN <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/infinera>), Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/juniper-networks>), MRV, Omnitron, Overture, PT Inovacao, Pulsecom, RAD Data Communications, Telco Systems, Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/tellabs>), Transition Networks and Transmode. Some of these guys focus what seems like exclusively on ethernet NID devices, and most all are MEF certified. Does anyone use the above vendors NIDs? On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 1:58 AM, Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> wrote:
David Bass wrote:
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Before choosing a box, you need to figure out:
- how many ports you need, and of what speed - how much you're prepared to pay - how much rack real estate you're ok about dedicating per box - what sort of mpls features you need (vpls / l2vpn-pw / l3vpn / 6pe / 6vpe, etc) - whether rich qos is a requirement - whether you're ever going to need good quality LAG / ECMP support on the platform - what vendor software you're happy to work with - whether you're ok with per port licensing
Typically the features that fall by the wayside first are: reasonable port buffers, qos knobs and decent lag/ecmp hashing support for mpls packets. The qos/port buffers tend to be more of a problem on the 10G platforms, but you didn't state whether you were interested in 1G or 10G, or how many ports you were looking for per box.
E.g. the production evolution for the me3600 is the asr920, which is better is most aspects except for shared buffer space. This means that the me3600 has better qos support, if deeper buffers are what's important. OTOH, if you need to do fine-grained qos based on ACLs or ports, then this platform isn't for you.
Most smaller mpls boxes don't load balance well over LAGs or ECMP because they lack the ability to inspect deep into the packet to get enough flow-aware entropy together to build a reasonable hash. If all your PE devices support flow-aware transport (rfc6391), you're fine, but very few smaller mpls boxes support this feature.
If 10G is a requirement, then you need to make a choice between one of the merchant chipsets (e.g. broadcom trident range) and vendor specific chipsets. Many of the larger vendors support the merchant chipsets these days for 10G access, but feature support can be varied. E.g. some devices don't support vpls and never will. Some are a bit behind on product development and don't yet support features like l3vpn or 6PE or 6VPE, even though they are roadmapped.
Nick
We use the Accedian Metro Nid in places. They work well, but are layer 2 only -- at least the ones we got. -----Original Message----- From: "Colton Conor" <colton.conor@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2016 9:34am To: "Nick Hilliard" <nick@foobar.org> Cc: "NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge I see Cisco and Juniper mentioned here, but what about all the smart NID companies out there? I found these of MEF list: Accedian, Altera, BTI Systems, Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/ciena>), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/cisco>), Cyan, FibroLAN, Huawei, Infinera (Nasdaq: INFN <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/infinera>), Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/juniper-networks>), MRV, Omnitron, Overture, PT Inovacao, Pulsecom, RAD Data Communications, Telco Systems, Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/tellabs>), Transition Networks and Transmode. Some of these guys focus what seems like exclusively on ethernet NID devices, and most all are MEF certified. Does anyone use the above vendors NIDs? On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 1:58 AM, Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> wrote:
David Bass wrote:
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Before choosing a box, you need to figure out:
- how many ports you need, and of what speed - how much you're prepared to pay - how much rack real estate you're ok about dedicating per box - what sort of mpls features you need (vpls / l2vpn-pw / l3vpn / 6pe / 6vpe, etc) - whether rich qos is a requirement - whether you're ever going to need good quality LAG / ECMP support on the platform - what vendor software you're happy to work with - whether you're ok with per port licensing
Typically the features that fall by the wayside first are: reasonable port buffers, qos knobs and decent lag/ecmp hashing support for mpls packets. The qos/port buffers tend to be more of a problem on the 10G platforms, but you didn't state whether you were interested in 1G or 10G, or how many ports you were looking for per box.
E.g. the production evolution for the me3600 is the asr920, which is better is most aspects except for shared buffer space. This means that the me3600 has better qos support, if deeper buffers are what's important. OTOH, if you need to do fine-grained qos based on ACLs or ports, then this platform isn't for you.
Most smaller mpls boxes don't load balance well over LAGs or ECMP because they lack the ability to inspect deep into the packet to get enough flow-aware entropy together to build a reasonable hash. If all your PE devices support flow-aware transport (rfc6391), you're fine, but very few smaller mpls boxes support this feature.
If 10G is a requirement, then you need to make a choice between one of the merchant chipsets (e.g. broadcom trident range) and vendor specific chipsets. Many of the larger vendors support the merchant chipsets these days for 10G access, but feature support can be varied. E.g. some devices don't support vpls and never will. Some are a bit behind on product development and don't yet support features like l3vpn or 6PE or 6VPE, even though they are roadmapped.
Nick
On 3/Feb/16 09:58, Nick Hilliard wrote:
Typically the features that fall by the wayside first are: reasonable port buffers, qos knobs and decent lag/ecmp hashing support for mpls packets.
Cisco, in general, are suffering here, i.e., QoS on LAG's. IOS, IOS XE and IOS XR suffer massively. We find that Junos does a better job here. Mark.
Hi Mark, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> schrieb am So., 28. Feb. 2016 07:13:
On 3/Feb/16 09:58, Nick Hilliard wrote:
Typically the features that fall by the wayside first are: reasonable port buffers, qos knobs and decent lag/ecmp hashing support for mpls packets.
Cisco, in general, are suffering here, i.e., QoS on LAG's.
IOS, IOS XE and IOS XR suffer massively.
We find that Junos does a better job here.
Mark.
Do yo have more details what's wrong with the XR platform? Which hardware do we talk about and which XR version is your statement applying? Rgds, Stefan
On 15/Mar/16 20:14, ML-NANOG-Stefan-Jakob wrote:
Do yo have more details what's wrong with the XR platform?
Which hardware do we talk about and which XR version is your statement applying?
Well, as it turns out, I just found out and confirmed that since IOS XE 3.12S and later, Cisco introduced a new feature called Aggregate EtherChannel Quality of Service: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/qos_mqc/configuration/xe-3s... With this, you can now apply a QoS policy on a LAG port and it will work with (almost) all QoS features without you needing to apply the policies on the LAG member links. I still need to spend some more time testing the policing side of things, particularly how the data plane is programmed re: carving of configured bandwidth across member ports in the LAG. I also see some good work being done on the ASR920 platform (also an IOS XE-based system), as per below: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/asr920/configuration/guide/qos/... From what I can gather, none of this love has made it to IOS or IOS XR boxes. So quite pleased with what I'm seeing with Cisco so far in this regard... Mark.
On 2/Feb/16 23:03, David Bass wrote:
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack. .
Cisco ASR920 - an evolution of the ME3600X, cheaper, more featured and simpler to operate. Juniper's ACX5000 is an option, but that Broadcom chipset scares me. Mark.
participants (12)
-
Baldur Norddahl -
Cameron Ferdinands -
Colton Conor -
Dan Spataro -
David Bass -
Josh Reynolds -
Jérôme Nicolle -
Mark Tinka -
Mike Hammett -
ML-NANOG-Stefan-Jakob -
Nick Hilliard -
Shawn L