Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this space?
Need a full MPLS stack.
Depending on your interpretation of full MPLS stack, you can look into the Brocade CES.
Hi David,
Le 02/02/2016 22:03, David Bass a �crit :
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a Cisco ME3600X?
I'd rather use the ASR920, the ME3600X is too deep to fit in some PoPs.
It also has a higher 10G port count.
Alternatively, on low cost deployments, I used Mikrotik CCR1016-12S-1S+.
Lower density, though.
For higher 10G density, I like the Juniper EX4550. But when you have to
stick to a limited number of vendors, I guess you could consider the
Catalyst 6840 line. Never had one to play with, though.
I'm currently evaluating another alternative : the Nokia-Alcatel-Lucent
ISAM 7360FX chassis (4 to 16 slots) with either P2P (36 client lines per
slot) or PON (up to 16 ports/slot), and a Mikrotik CCR1072 right behind
to encapsulate L2 circuits. It's, by far, the denser and cheapest way to
provide more than a few hundred 100M-1Gbps circuits per PoP.
Best regards,
David Bass wrote:
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a
Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this
space?Need a full MPLS stack.
Features, speed, price: choose 2.
Wait, you said MPLS: choose 1.5.
Nick
Hi,
The ZTE 5900E series has a full MPLS stack and is solid hardware. Much
cheaper than Cisco and Juniper.
Regards,
Baldur
Jerome,
We use some of the 7360's, but not the Mikrotik. Why not use ALU's CPE
devices if using the 7360?
I'd use ALU's ONTs (there's now a SFP GPON stick available too) or RGWs
on the client side, the Mikrotik here is the PE router, because ALU's
FANT-F card lacks EoMPLS/ATOM/VPLS/E-VPN capabilities. I only use QinQ
on its 4*10Gbps uplink ports.
Any 80Gbps capable PE router would be fine, though. I choose the
Mikrotik CRR1072 for its price and density.
Thanks to all that have replied!
Yes, I just started looking at the ASR9xx series of routers as well...seems like a likely alternative if we go with Cisco.
David Bass wrote:
Looking to see what others are using out there as an alternative to a
Cisco ME3600X? Also, what other vendors out there are playing in this
space?Need a full MPLS stack.
Before choosing a box, you need to figure out:
- how many ports you need, and of what speed
- how much you're prepared to pay
- how much rack real estate you're ok about dedicating per box
- what sort of mpls features you need (vpls / l2vpn-pw / l3vpn / 6pe /
6vpe, etc)
- whether rich qos is a requirement
- whether you're ever going to need good quality LAG / ECMP support on
the platform
- what vendor software you're happy to work with
- whether you're ok with per port licensing
Typically the features that fall by the wayside first are: reasonable
port buffers, qos knobs and decent lag/ecmp hashing support for mpls
packets. The qos/port buffers tend to be more of a problem on the 10G
platforms, but you didn't state whether you were interested in 1G or
10G, or how many ports you were looking for per box.
E.g. the production evolution for the me3600 is the asr920, which is
better is most aspects except for shared buffer space. This means that
the me3600 has better qos support, if deeper buffers are what's
important. OTOH, if you need to do fine-grained qos based on ACLs or
ports, then this platform isn't for you.
Most smaller mpls boxes don't load balance well over LAGs or ECMP
because they lack the ability to inspect deep into the packet to get
enough flow-aware entropy together to build a reasonable hash. If all
your PE devices support flow-aware transport (rfc6391), you're fine, but
very few smaller mpls boxes support this feature.
If 10G is a requirement, then you need to make a choice between one of
the merchant chipsets (e.g. broadcom trident range) and vendor specific
chipsets. Many of the larger vendors support the merchant chipsets
these days for 10G access, but feature support can be varied. E.g. some
devices don't support vpls and never will. Some are a bit behind on
product development and don't yet support features like l3vpn or 6PE or
6VPE, even though they are roadmapped.
Nick
I see Cisco and Juniper mentioned here, but what about all the smart NID
companies out there? I found these of MEF list:
Accedian, Altera, BTI Systems, Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN
<http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/ciena>), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO
<http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/cisco>), Cyan, FibroLAN, Huawei,
Infinera (Nasdaq: INFN <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/infinera>),
Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR
<http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/juniper-networks>), MRV, Omnitron,
Overture, PT Inovacao, Pulsecom, RAD Data Communications, Telco Systems,
Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB <http://www.fiercetelecom.com/tags/tellabs>),
Transition Networks and Transmode.
Some of these guys focus what seems like exclusively on ethernet NID
devices, and most all are MEF certified. Does anyone use the above vendors
NIDs?
We use the Accedian Metro Nid in places. They work well, but are layer 2 only -- at least the ones we got.
If you need high-er density 10GE. Consider an Juniper ACX5048.
Great edge box, MPLS features, it's essentially just a QFX with
repartitioned CAM / some tricks to get the most out of the Trident II
chipset.
Won't do a bunch of things, so make sure it's exactly what you need or
you'll burn yourself YMMV.
Thanks for all the insight everyone...very helpful discussion!
Has anyone see the SRX deployed in these situations?
We have been talking to Juniper about the ACX, and they seem to be pushing it as a Metro E, or in situations where you don't need a lot of features (like a L2 agg point for wireless).
Why not consider an EX4500?
Yeah, on the list...well the 4600 is since it's somewhat the replacement to the 4500/4550.
Newer, more expensive, more bugs. 4500 is cheap on the secondary market.
I encourage my competitors to scoff at the secondary market. 
Cisco ASR920 - an evolution of the ME3600X, cheaper, more featured and
simpler to operate.
Juniper's ACX5000 is an option, but that Broadcom chipset scares me.
Mark.
Cisco, in general, are suffering here, i.e., QoS on LAG's.
IOS, IOS XE and IOS XR suffer massively.
We find that Junos does a better job here.
Mark.
The EX4600 is actually just a shy cheaper than the EX4550. We are
looking at it not because the EX4550 is a bad box, but because Juniper
are focusing development on the EX4600 instead (much like Cisco are
doing between the ME3600X and ASR920).
You lose 8x ports on the EX4600, though, if coming from the EX4550. May
or may not be an issue for you.
I wouldn't look at the EX4500. Too big and old now.
Mark.