[131302] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Recommendations for Metro-Ethernet Equipment
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Blackford)
Thu Oct 21 21:51:03 2010
In-Reply-To: <SNT119-W288AFAA3C2B73AD17E0FC4DC5D0@phx.gbl>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:47:56 -0700
From: Bill Blackford <bblackford@gmail.com>
To: Brandon Kim <brandon.kim@brandontek.com>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Unrelated, but...
I use Extreme Summit in low-touch, user access areas because of it's
low cost and stacking capability as compared to J and C. I figure you
get what you pay for. The interface stats, ease of functionality for
some of the features I frequent, are seriously lacking. I've been told
that I could write a script to get close to the same functionality
that I get by default with my other two vendor choices, but I find
that unacceptable. I experienced that the LLDP-MED seems to require a
"re-config" occasionally to work consistently, so,....... this vendor
would not be my first choice to venture into a new technology. Others
posters [YMMV].
Now, the Extreme cost/benefit, small form factor and features such as
their proprietary ring protocol (similar to Cisco REP), may make them
a contender for MEF applications. I can't say. For high-touch, high
visibility purposes, I'm making other choices.
-b
--=20
Bill Blackford
Network Engineer
Logged into reality and abusing my sudo privileges.....
an their purple color
> and that I don't really know their IOS that well. But to be fair, they ha=
ve worked just fine.....
>
> In the future I hope we can migrate over to cisco switches because I'm bi=
as..... =3D)
>
>
>
>> From: merkel@metalink.net
>> To: nanog@nanog.org
>> Subject: RE: Recommendations for Metro-Ethernet Equipment
>> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:05:37 -0400
>>
>> Thanks to everyone who responded. Just got done talking with Extreme whi=
ch
>> no one really mentioned. Seems like decent gear reasonably priced. Anyon=
e
>> care to comment on them specifically or have them used them a metro Ethe=
rnet
>> build?
>>
>>
>> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>> Eric Merkel
>> MetaLINK Technologies, Inc.
>> Email: merkel at metalink.net
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Dan Armstrong [mailto:dan@beanfield.com]
>> Sent: 2010-10-20 19:50
>> To: Ramanpreet Singh
>> Cc: Jason Lixfeld; nanog@nanog.org
>> Subject: Re: Recommendations for Metro-Ethernet Equipment
>>
>> I think that's what Jason just said. :-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2010-10-20, at 5:24 PM, Ramanpreet Singh wrote:
>>
>> > 7600's/ASR 1k
>> >
>> > Have you looked in to Ciso ME 3600X/ME 3800X series?
>> >
>> > Without a bias these are the top notch products in the market for Metr=
o E.
>> >
>> > -Raman
>> >
>> > On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Jason Lixfeld <jason@lixfeld.ca> wro=
te:
>> >> On 2010-10-20, at 11:24 AM, Eric Merkel wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Any suggestions, success or horror stories are appreciated. ;)
>> >>
>> >> I've been going through pretty much the same exercise looking for a
>> decent PE for almost two years. =A0Our requirements were for a PE device=
that
>> had between 12-24 ports (in a perfect world, mixed mode 10/100/1000 copp=
er +
>> SFP), 10G uplinks, EoMPLS, MPLS VPN, DHCP server, port-protect/UNI (or
>> similar) capabilities, DC power and a small footprint (1RU)
>> >>
>> >> Of all the ones we looked at (Juniper, Cisco, Extreme, Brocade, MRV,
>> Alcatel) initially, MRV was the only contender. =A0The rest either didn'=
t have
>> a product, or their offering didn't meet various points within our crite=
ria.
>> >>
>> >> As such, we bought a bunch of MRVs in early 2009 and after four month=
s of
>> trial and error, we yanked every single one out of the network. =A0From =
a
>> physical perspective, the box was perfect. =A0Port density was perfect,
>> mixed-mode ports, promised a 10G uplink product soon, size was perfect,
>> power was perfect, we thought we had it nailed. =A0Unfortunately there a=
re no
>> words to describe how terrible the software was. =A0The CLI took a littl=
e
>> getting used to, which is pretty much par for the course when you're dea=
ling
>> with a new vendor, but the code itself was just absolutely broken,
>> everywhere. =A0Duplex issues, LDP constantly crashing taking the box wit=
h it,
>> OSPF issues, the list went on and on. =A0To their credit, they flew engi=
neers
>> up from the US and they were quite committed to making stuff work, but a=
t
>> the end of the day, they just couldn't make it go. =A0We pulled the plug=
in
>> May 2009 and I haven't heard a thing about their product since then, so
>> maybe they've got it all together.
>> >>
>> >> While meeting with Juniper a few months later about a different proje=
ct,
>> they said they had a product that might fit our needs. =A0The EX4200. =
=A0As
>> such, we had a few of these loaned to our lab for a few months to put
>> through their paces, from a features and interoperability perspective. =
=A0They
>> work[1] and they seem to work well. =A0The show stopper was provisioning=
[1]
>> and size. =A0The box is massive, albeit it is still 1U.
>> >>
>> >> [1] (I'm not a Juniper guy, so my recollection on specific terms and
>> jargon may be a bit off kilter) they only support ccc, which makes
>> provisioning an absolute nightmare. =A0From my experience with Cisco and=
MRV,
>> you only have to configure the EoMPLS vc. =A0On the EX4200, you have to =
create
>> the LSPs as well. =A0To get a ccc working, the JunOS code block was far =
larger
>> and much more involved per vc than the single line Cisco equivalent. =A0=
To
>> create the LSPs was, I believe, two more equally large sized code blocks=
.
>> At the end of the day, it was just too involved. =A0We needed something
>> simpler.
>> >>
>> >> About the same time that we started to evaluate the EX4200, Cisco had
>> pitched us on their (then alpha) Whales platform. =A0It looked promising=
(MRV
>> still had the best form factor) and we expressed our interest in getting=
a
>> beta unit in as soon as we were able to. =A0This is now known as the ME3=
600
>> and ME3800 platform and we've been testing a beta unit in our lab for th=
e
>> past few months. =A0This is the platform we have chosen. =A0It's not per=
fect,
>> but our gripes have more to do with form factor (it's 1RU, but it's a bi=
t
>> deeper than what we'd like) and port densities (no mixed mode ports) tha=
n
>> software or features. =A0We've been pretty pleased with it's feature set=
and
>> performance, but this hasn't seen any real world action, so who knows ho=
w
>> that will turn out.
>> >>
>> >> If you're asking more about a P router or P/PE hybrid, we've also jus=
t
>> ordered a few ASR9000s under try-and-buy as P/PEs to close up the chains=
of
>> ME3600s that will start to be deployed in our remote sites. =A0A Juniper=
MX
>> would certainly work well here too, and it seems to interoperate rather =
well
>> with the ME3600s, so that's certainly an option, but for us, we think it
>> will work more in our favor to go with the ASRs in the core, but if not,
>> we'd ship them back under the try-and-buy and get Junipers instead.
>> >>
>> >> Hope that helps.
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
--=20
Bill Blackford
Network Engineer
Logged into reality and abusing my sudo privileges.....
