[134709] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Is Cisco equpiment de facto for you?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jared Mauch)
Mon Jan 10 10:39:41 2011
From: Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net>
In-Reply-To: <BLU158-w62DD4D2B47BAF044206783DC0E0@phx.gbl>
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:38:38 -0500
To: Brandon Kim <brandon.kim@brandontek.com>
Cc: nanog group <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Jan 10, 2011, at 10:31 AM, Brandon Kim wrote:
>=20
> Hello gents:
>=20
> I wanted to put this out there for all of you. Our network consists of =
a mixture of Cisco and Extreme equipment.
>=20
> Would you say that it's fair to say that if you are serious at all =
about being a service provider that your core equipment is Cisco based?
>=20
> Am I limiting myself by thinking that Cisco is the "de facto" vendor =
of choice? I'm not looking for so much "fanboy" responses, but more of a =
real world
> experience of what you guys use that actually work and does the =
job.....
I think a lot of this depends on the market.
If you're into FTTH/FTTP then Cisco is not the way to go. They have no =
serious offerings in this space IMHO. (that are cost competitive).
Each vendor has various things they do well. Cisco surely is well =
capitalized with a broad portfolio of offerings in the DWDM to IP space.
I do believe they are the "IBM" of the industry, ie: "Nobody ever was =
fired for buying IBM(sic)".
This does not mean they (nor anyone else) delivers a perfect solution. =
This is a challenge that I frequently remind the vendors of, as =
apparently many customers actually do *yell* at them when there are =
bugs, vs offering constructive partnerships to resolve the issues.
I think that Juniper, Foundry(Brocade) and some other vendors offer =
compelling products in the core space as well. It's well worth its =
while to build a relationship with your vendors so you can have that =
constructive partnership IMHO. Then when you hit a serious problem, you =
can take constructive actions vs just screaming loudly and hoping they =
jump.
- Jared=
