GSR, 7600, Juniper M?, oh my!

Thu Jan 8 05:11:09 UTC 2004

Back to the original question..

A lot of your decision comes down to what you're going to be doing with the
box and when you expect your next jump from OC3 to OC12(or greater).  Also,
you need to consider your comfort level with JUNOS vs IOS.  If you're cool
with JUNOS then multiple M series boxes are worth investigating.  Our
experience with them has been almost nothing but positive, plus they will
allow you to expand to greater than OC3, providing you with some future
proofing.

7600's have proven to be fine boxes, especially if you have need for
Ethernet port density at the same layer as your optical circuits.  A lot of
feature support is going to depend on your supervisor/msfc selection.  If
you go this route, and the coffers are full, check out the new(er) sup720's.
However, based on your ACL and Policing requirements, the Sup2/MSFC2 combo
should be sufficient.  Also, keeping in mind the emergence of point to point
Ethernet solutions in the WAN/MAN (ie Metro Ethernet, and MPLS and L2TPv3
pseudowires) keeping Ethernet at your edge might prove useful one day.

The GSR, IMHO, is a higher tier box based on both it's scalability to OC192
and cost.  Since you're just going to OC3's now, I doubt the GSR will be
your best bet for the cost, but then again I haven't priced one out lately.

If you're really pinching pennies, then check out upgrading your 7500's with
RSP8/16s and faster VIPs.  But, if you're putting multiple OC3's on a box,
then your down links will likely start turning to GE.  I'd stay away from
the GEIPs if possible.  And for your 7200's, look into the NPG-G1 which have
line rate GE ports onboard.  We've used them and they are pretty solid.  A
head to head GRE bakeoff between the NPE-G1 and an RSP8(with dCEF) proved
the NPE to be far superior.  

Josh

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf Of bcm
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 1:11 PM
To: nanog at merit.edu
Subject: GSR, 7600, Juniper M?, oh my!

Hello all,

    I'm faced with a difficult decision.  I work for a large multi-node
regional ISP (and Cisco shop).  In our largest nodes we've found the Cisco
7500 series routers to be at the end of their useful life due to the
throughput generated by POS OC-3 feeds and 10,000+ broadband users whose
traffic needs to be moved out of the node.  Short of building a farm of
7500's the need to upgrade seems clear.

    But where to go?  The Cisco GSR platform seems a logical choice, but
their new 7600 series units are attractive for their cost.  Juniper may also
have a place at this end of the processing spectrum.  I'd also like to
ensure that the new platform supports doing CAR and ACLs at line rate, given
the client base.

    I wanted to see what other operators in this situation have done, so I
would appreciate anyone's input or insight into the pros and cons of these
platforms or any other ideas as to how I can grow beyond the Cisco 7500.