[117188] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Single router for P/PE functions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mikael Abrahamsson)
Fri Sep 4 00:15:43 2009
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 06:14:52 +0200 (CEST)
From: Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se>
To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <462083.54398.qm@web53604.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Thu, 3 Sep 2009, Serge Vautour wrote:
> I'm pretty confident that a router can be used to perform P & PE
> functions simultaneously. What about from a best practice perspective?
> Is this something that should be completely avoided? Why? We're
> considering doing this as a temporary workaround but we all know
> temporary usually lasts a long time. I'd like to know what kind of mess
> awaits if we let this one go.
Collapsing P/PE functions certainly saves CAPEX, the downside is that you
might need to reload your PE (affecting customers) due to a core feature
upgrade or bug fix, or the other way around. With separate P and PE
functions and PEs being dual attached to two Ps, you can reboot P layer
with minimal end customer impact.
I'd imagine that in smaller networks it makes more sense to collapse
compared to larger network, because a smaller network has fewer customers
to be affected by each router problem.
It's basically "put all the eggs in one basket" kind of issue, it's easier
to carry around but you lose more when something happens.
--
Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
