[163796] in North American Network Operators' Group
Network Vendor suggestions/reviews, Arista Networks, Dell Force10,
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Blake Pfankuch - Mailing List)
Tue Jun 18 19:54:17 2013
From: Blake Pfankuch - Mailing List <blake.mailinglist@pfankuch.me>
To: "NANOG (nanog@nanog.org)" <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:53:50 +0000
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Howdy,
I have been working on a proposal for the organization I wo=
rk for to move into the 10gbit datacenter. We have a small datacenter curr=
ently of about 1000 ports of 1gbit. We have traditionally been a full Cisc=
o shop, however I was asked to do a price comparison as well as features wi=
th other major alternative vendors. I was also asked to do some digging as=
far as what "the real world" thinks about these possible vendors.
We currently have 2 Cisco 6509's with 8 48 port cards Sup 3BXL, 2 Cisco 450=
6 with 5x 48 port card and Sup V's and 2 4900M switches providing 10gbit to=
a very specialized implementation. With all of our technology, we try to =
not be bleeding edge, but oozing edge. We need 5 9's or more of uptime yea=
rly so stability is preferable to cool features. We currently have single =
supervisors in all of our switches (not my decision) and it has bit us rece=
ntly. Everything we are looking at needs to support NSF/SSO/VSS of some ki=
nd.
What we have been looking to replace it with in Cisco world is Nexus 7004 C=
ore and Nexus 5596UP with 2200 series Fabric extenders for Dist/Access as w=
ell as 2200 Fabric Extenders within our Dell Blade Chassis. Realistically =
we will be under 800 ports of 10gbit (excluding Blades) which puts us in a =
tough spot from what I can find. Currently everything we have is EOR, howe=
ver TOR would make more sense allowing us to switch to SFP+ twinax connecti=
vity to servers.
With this in mind, I have a few questions...
It was mandated that I look at a company "Arista Networks" and investigate =
possible options. I had not heard much about them, so I look to the expert=
s. Pro's and Con's? Real world experience? Looks to me they have a lot o=
f cool features, but I'm slightly concerned with how new they might be, how=
reliable it would be as well as their QA/bugfix history. Also 24x4 suppor=
t and hardware replacement. Everything in our datacenter currently has a 2=
or 4 hour cisco contract on it and critical core components have a cold sp=
are in inventory.
Dell Force 10... I know Dell tries to get you to drink the Koolaid on this =
solution, I was a former Dell Partner and they even pushed me to get demo e=
quipment going... What's the experience with their chassis switches? Stab=
ility? Configuration sanity? What do people like? What do people hate?
Juniper. What do people like? What do people hate? Have the Layer 2 issue=
s of historical age gone away? Is the config still xml ish? It has been a=
bout 5 years since I worked with anything Juniper.
Extreme networks. I know very little about them historically. What is goo=
d, what is bad? Is the config sane?
I would be happy to compile any information I find, as well as our sanitize=
d internal conclusions. On and off list responses welcome.
If there is another vendor anyone would suggest, please add them to the lis=
t with similarly asked questions.
Thanks!
Blake
