Re: Low density Juniper (or alternative) Edge

["Shawn L" <shawnl () up net>]

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