Upgrade Path Options from 6500 SUP720-3BXL for Edge Routing

Tue Jul 29 02:21:32 UTC 2014

I’m curious what other providers have gone with when moving away from SUP720-3BXL 6500 platforms.  I’m platform agnostic and just as comfortable with Juniper as with Cisco.

It’s a conversation were having since the 3BXL’s are running into limits with the large number of prefixes, long eBGP convergence times, and 10G port density.

Basically were looking to carry multiple full routing tables from several 4+ carriers plus internet exchange traffic so the ability to handle 1-2M IPV4 and 500K+ IPv6 and decent 10G port density and/or 40G options as well.  Also should have decent CPU capabilities so it can crunch routes in a reasonable amount of time.

Right now my thinking are MX480 or ASR9k platforms.  Opinions on those are equally welcome as alternatives, but I’d love to hear from those with personal experiences today vs sales people trying to tell me it would route the world :)

Thanks,

Corey T