Force10 Gear - Opinions

Mon Aug 25 23:26:55 UTC 2008

On Aug 22, 2008, at 7:34 AM, Matlock, Kenneth L wrote:
> 1)       Reliability

Very good.  Across our entire business we've lost 1 RPM module in ~2  
years.

> 2)       Performance

[Note: we have no 10g interfaces, so I can only speak to a many- 
singleg-port environment]
Much higher than Cisco.  So good at dealing with traffic problems that  
we have had multi-gig DoS attacks that we wouldn't have known about  
without having an IDS running on a mirroring port.

> 3)       Support staff (how knowledgeable are they?)

Significantly higher than Cisco, and escalation is easier.  On par  
with Juniper.

> 4)       Price (higher/lower/comparable to comparable Cisco gear)

80% of the Cisco of a comparable Cisco solution, and the support  
contracts are cheaper too.

> We're exclusively a Cisco shop here right now (mostly Cat6500s), so
> changing out some of our core gear with Force 10 is a bit 'scary', but
> if it meets our needs, maybe...

If you go from Juniper to Force10 you might find some things lacking,  
but Cisco to Force10 is only an improvement.  You'll never have to  
wonder if the command you're typing will throw the unit into software  
routing mode, as Cisco bugs have usually done.  (not possible in the  
FTOS architecture)

These things are so very solid that I rarely spend any time doing  
network work any more.  Gigabit line-speed BCP38 makes life easier for  
the abuse helpdesk too.

-- 
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source  
and other randomness