NPE-G2 vs. Sup720-3BXL

Mon May 18 11:20:06 UTC 2009

David Storandt wrote:
> We're stuck in an engineering pickle, so some experience from this
> crew would be useful in tie-breaking...
>
> We operate a business-grade FTTx ISP with ~75 customers and 800Mbps of
> Internet traffic, currently using 6509/Sup2s for core routing and port
> aggregation. The MSFC2s are under stress from 3x full route feeds,
> pared down to 85% to fit the TCAM tables. One system has a FlexWAN
> with an OC3 card and it's crushing the CPU on the MSFC2. System tuning
> (stable IOS and esp. disabling SPD) helped a lot but still doesn't
> have the power to pull through. Hardware upgrades are needed...
>
> We need true full routes and more CPU horsepower for crunching BGP
> (+12 smaller peers + ISIS). OC3 interfaces are going to be mandatory,
> one each at two locations. Oh yeah, we're still a larger startup
> without endless pockets. Power, rack space, and SmartNet are not
> concerns at any location (on-site cold spares). We may need an
> upstream OC12 in the future but that's a ways out and not a concern
> here.
>
> Our engineering team has settled on three $20k/node options:
> - Sup720-3BXLs with PS and fan upgrades
> - Sup2s as switches + ISIS + statics and no BGP, push BGP edge routing
> off to NPE-G2s across a 2-3Gbps port-channel
> - Sup2s as switches + ISIS + statics and no BGP, push BGP edge routing
> off to a 12008 with E3 engines across a 2-3Gbps port-channel.
>   
Have a look at the ASR1002 + ESP5/10G

Stable for BGP+ISIS as far as our experience goes.

adam.