Cisco NCS5501 as a P Router

Sat May 27 09:30:41 UTC 2017

On Thu, May 18, 2017, at 15:21, Erik Sundberg wrote:
> We're at the growing point where we need a dedicated P router for a core
> device. We are taking a serious look at the NCS5501. Is there anyone else
> using a NCS5501 as P Router or just general feedback on the NCS5501 if
> you are using it?

Hi,

While we're not using the NCS5501, we do use the "previous version",
NCS5001. We're not yet at a point to care about the minuscule buffers.
Set-up : initially P-router in a very small BGP-free core (ISIS + LDP),
then added route-reflector functionality too. 

As a P-router they usually behave correctly, except for the some cases
where they start routing incorrectly (according to Cisco, the wrong
label is programmed into hardware). That should have been fixed with
6.1.2, which we have deployed, until we recently had the same issue on
6.1.2, on the exact same box. We expect having some fun with the TAC
about that.

> The big downside is it's only has a single processor

Yes, but:
 - it's powerful enough (we ended-up using them as RR too, and ~1.2M
 routes in RIB pose no problem)
 - ours being about half the price of a 5501, we have 2 of them on every
 site. If you can afford the same (2 / site) do it; If you don't -
 review the copy so that you can (Brocade SLX 9540 looks like a good
 alternative).