Ciscos are much easier to work with though.
No way, some say the GRF is MUCH easier to work with. I admit if all you
know is cisco, it may be easier to work with cisco. I can config both vary
well, and I find the GRF easier to work with now that I have had some time
with them.
One big down point on the GRF's imho is that in order to change anything
with them you have to run a gdcreconfig, which stops and starts gated,
effectively taking down the routing for a period of time, whereas you can
add/remove a static route from a cisco and not bring down the routing.
Back the truck up, where did you get this? If I want to change gated.conf
I need to run gdc reconfig after I am done. This DOES NOT restart gated.
If you want to restart gatec then do a gdc restart or gdc stop then gdc
start. I would suggest you work with the GRF and then say what it can or
cant do. It would be almost impossible to work with a box that would
restart every time you wanted to change the configs.
Also I know someone is going to say that you cant reset a single peer on a
GRF, but sorry Ascend fixed that.
GRF's also take about 5-10 minutes to reboot, which can be annoying.
Hello? How many of them have you rebooted? Ok, I just rebooted
rt3.ATL.netrail.net and it took 139 seconds to come back up. That is 2.316
min. Ok, not lets try a cold start..... 127 seconds or 2.116 min. Ok, do
you now want me to run it on my cisco? 
Look, I will be the first to say that GRF has problem. Just call up
Ascend, I yell more then most because I have a lot of experience with gated
on my old PC routers. Ascend has fixed a large number of problems. There
will be more, just like cisco will have more problem. Ascend has as box
that is vary good, please look at the box before you slam it in public.
On the other hand it's quite easy to manage users and such with the GRF's
, as they are BSD based. Setting up authentication like Radius and
SecurID is quite simple as well.
Then there are the advantages of being able to use tools like nslookup and
whois without having to open a shell somewhere. Very nice while
troubleshooting.
So, as with any product comparison there are pros and cons to both. I
think that Cisco's are great, as I'm not a Unix/GateD guru, but I think
that the Ascends have a bit more power to them and will be able to better
handle the growing routing table.
Yes they have a lot more power to them.
Just my 2 cents.
P.S. I do not work or speak for Ascend, I am just a happy customer that
has been working with the box for over a year.
Nathan Stratton President, CTO, NetRail,Inc.