ASR vs 7604 for BGP border router?

Thu Jul 1 04:49:09 UTC 2010

What kind of budget do you have? I think it really depends on what you're going after. 

Both would work... Is there something specific you want to do? Honestly, your current bandwidth utilization and need could be handled by an OpenBSD system.

I think I may be missing your exact question. Are you asking which would work best? Or simply asking about reliability?

In my opinion, I prefer the Juniper MX series over the ASR. However, there are plenty of fanboys for ASR's. I really don't think you could go wrong either way.

Unless a deciding factor is budget or something along those lines...
------Original Message------
From: David Hubbard
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: ASR vs 7604 for BGP border router?
Sent: Jun 30, 2010 10:48 PM

Curious if anyone can give me some real world thoughts
on the Cisco ASR1004 w/RP2 & ESP5 versus a 7604 w/??
as a border router for web hosting environment.

I'm looking to replace a pair of aging routers of a
different make.  Current config is four providers,
two send full BGP on gigE to both of our routers
for redundancy, two providers send full BGP on gigE
to only one each, so basically each device receives
three full feeds and then they talk to each other.
Very simple network; border passes through firewalls
to core using static routes, core has default route
out to the border, all one physical location,
nothing obscure or complicated.

Cisco rep suggested looking at the ASR due to our
interest in having the firewall functionality built
in so we can get rid of the standalones, but that's not
mandatory.  A friend suggested the 7604 but I'm not
sure what config as far as management, add-on cards,
etc.  The cumulative outbound traffic may burst up to
1 Gbit/sec during the business day, averages less.
Only three things that really matter are reliable BGP,
functional IPv6 (not using it yet but want to), won't
fall down if a compromised server starts sending out
line rate garbage packets it has to discard or
similar things that don't happen in a test lab.

Thanks,

Dave