1GE L3 aggregation

Mon Jun 20 07:14:02 UTC 2016

On 19/Jun/16 10:17, Saku Ytti wrote:

> But I do think, that if L3 to the edge had no commercial problems,
> people would universally choose to do it. L2VPN is just workaround to
> a commercial problem. Sometimes (residential access) to a technical
> problem (how do I share my IPv4 space effectively).

I think we are getting there now, with the ASR920 and friends. And who
knows, with Arista now playing in the IP/MPLS space, they might make a
switch worth its name against the traditional routing vendors.

You must also consider that there are a number of engineers that
generally prefer tunnels. I know it sounds silly, but I've come across
several engineers who prefer the idea of centralizing services over a
tunnel to a single box where the intelligence happens. I suppose the
passion is as much the same as engineers who like MPLS vs. those that don't.

But because Layer 2 switches will always be cheaper than IP/MPLS
switches, I don't see this problem going away, even if an IP/MPLS switch
cost US$200/unit vs. a Layer 2 switch which cost US$150/unit.

Mark.