Brocade SLX Internet Edge

Thu Nov 1 10:04:01 UTC 2018

Hi,

I do have some 9540s near exchange points, but they are not 100% 
productive right now, basically waiting for the next software release 
this month and a maintenance window. In my eyes the device is filling 
the gap between the CES/CER series and the MLX/SLX9850. It will be also 
interesting  where Bro<H><H><H> Extreme is going to position the new, 
bigger (?) brother 9640 next year.

Our 9540s take full feeds right now without moaning:

show ip route summary
IP Routing Table - 717510 entries:
   Number of prefixes:
   /0: 1   /8: 14   /9: 11   /10: 35   /11: 98   /12: 291   /13: 567   
/14: 1130   /15: 1932   /16: 13357   /17: 7876   /18: 13735   /19: 25102 
   /20: 38379   /21: 45371   /22: 89251   /23: 73451   /24: 406788   
/25: 2   /26: 9   /27: 22   /28: 35   /29: 36   /30: 8   /32: 9

And for this to work, you need

- the latest release, 18r.1.00, better 18r.2.00 (End of Nov 18) because 
of DEFECT000666685 (prefix filter list)

- buy / activate the trust-based advanced features license for MPLS, 
BGP-EVPN, CE2.0, Optiscale, basically on cli:
	=> license eula accept

- activate Optiscale Routing in the configuration

	=> profile route route-enhance hw_opt on v4_fib_comp on v6_fib_comp on
	=> shall scale to 1.5M IPv4 & 140k IPv6 routes (the 256k IPv4 / 64k 
IPv6 information is old)

With the advanced license you are also eligible to spin up a Linux VM 
for additional tools, monitoring et al on a reserved cpu core.

The software part of the SLX feels like a mixture of Brocade NOS 
(port-channel, vlan, switchport, … ) and Netiron components (router 
configuration, …) while the hardware is pretty much inspired by the 
VDX line.

Therefore some SNMP tools like LibreNMS recognize the SLX as VDX because 
of fancy wildcards in the hardware model type and I am still looking to 
write some patches for this.

Regards
Jörg

On 31 Oct 2018, at 21:01, Kevin Burke wrote:

> Does anyone have any success with the Brocade SLX 9540 or similar?  
> Its going to be taking full BGP tables from two Tier1's and some 
> peering.
>
> The specs and sales rep says its fine, but the price makes me think 
> its too good to be true.
>
> We are trying to shepherd an old Cat 6509 out of our core.
>
>
> Kevin Burke
> 802-540-0979
> Burlington Telecom - City of Burlington
> 200 Church St, Burlington, VT 05401