[NANOG] Alcatel-Lucent

Wed May 14 00:02:19 UTC 2008

On 14/05/2008, at 10:37 AM, Phil Bedard wrote:

> The 5260 is actually a decent NMS
> which is something I never thought I'd say about a NMS, although the
> pricing model isn't very good.

Yeah, I'll agree with that. I've raved about the 5620SAM (not to be  
confused with the 5620NM, which manage ATM etc. boxes) for a while.  
It's the only NMS I've seen [1] that exposes /everything/ to the end  
user. If someone updates stuff on the CLI, a trap is send, and the  
graphical display updates within seconds, even for what you'd think  
were really obscure things. The dev work for these products is done in  
parallel I believe, instead of as a separate product line.

As with most vendor specific NMSs, you want to use 7x50 boxes  
exclusively for a certain function. I.e. 7x50 only boxes on the edge.

The 7x50's have some kinda weird ways of doing things, and you really  
want to do a training course to understand how they work - they are  
quite a big paradigm change, and you'll end up doing things sub- 
optimally unless you understand how they're supposed to function. The  
major thing is the config is service oriented. I.e. on a traditional  
box, you configure a bunch of parameters all over the place, and a  
certain service pops out. With these Alcatel-Lucent boxes, you  
configure a service, and the parameters are implied somewhat.

Interop is fine, but you'll find that many of the knobs are called  
different things to what you're used to - mostly as a function of that  
paradigm change.

Ask for a v6 roadmap. Last time I looked (~ a year ago) there were  
some strange limitations, for example, a surprisingly small max v6  
routing table.

--
Nathan Ward

[1] Admittedly, my experience with other NMS's is heavily tarnished by  
Dorado RMC. Please hold while I hug myself and rock back and forward  
in my chair for a bit.