Hi,
Im looking to deploy more mpls in my network. I like the Cisco 3600X series but the low density of 10g ports has me wanting to consider perhaps others. I would love a minimum of 4 10g ports but of course more is better. Cost would also be a factor. What are people using these days?
Thanks.
Mike-
Mike,
Nor sure how much you know about SDN or if you are in anywhere near being able to make the transition, but white-label switches may be a deciding factor for you. In fact you may be able to do it without SDN, but I cannot say for sure as we have ours configured in SDN mode. We use Edge-Core 5712-54X switches for our 10G (48x 10G and 6x 40G) and I cannot recommend them enough. Combined with Picos from Pica8, we can do SDN/SD-WAN as well as MPLS at around 6,000 per switch plus maintenance. If you want more information or contacts, hit me up offline (or rather off the mailing list).
-Todd
Interesting. What SDN controller are you using?
Seems like quite a few are moving to white box switches...
I just subscribed to NANOG and I already learned something new.
I did not know about WhiteBox switches. I like how the price tag is
plainly visible to all. This "contact a salesperson" requirement gets
old very quickly.
ZTE 5950 serie MPLS routing switches are about 1500 to 3000 USD depending
on configuration. They have a 4x 10G subcard. The CLI is very Cisco like.
The ZTE 5960 has 32 or 64 x 10G but starts at 5k-6k.
Regards
Baldur
Cisco ASR920.
4x 10Gbps uplink ports + 24x customer-facing ports. All IP/MPLS capable.
Mark.
Dear Mr. Mike,
I would recommend HP A5500-HI. It's a very capable L3 routing switch (12k FIB) aswell as MPLS forwarder - both P and PE. It has two 10 GbE SFP+ ports and is expandable to a total of six if you add two modules. The price is about 2000 dollars (new) and you can stack them aswell using regular M/SMF. It's also got 24 one gig SFP ports in addition to four one gig RJ45 copper ports.
Best regards,
Jonas Bjork
Senior network engineer
Do the Juniper EX switches support MPLS? I know they have models with
multiple 10G ports on them. There is also the QFX series.
I know the 4500/4550 does but it requires a license.
Do the Juniper EX switches support MPLS? I know they have models with
multiple 10G ports on them.
They do, but (deliberately) broken. I wouldn't try it.
There is also the QFX series.
Not that I know of, but the ACX is a QFX-derivative (Broadcom chipset,
approach with caution).
Mark.
Do the Juniper EX switches support MPLS? I know they have models with
multiple 10G ports on them.They do, but (deliberately) broken. I wouldn't try it.
EX4600 does MPLS just fine, nothing else really does in the EX
series.. EX4200 can do 1 label. The EX4600 featureset is pretty much
the same as QFX5100 in addition to supporting MACSEC.
There is also the QFX series.
Not that I know of, but the ACX is a QFX-derivative (Broadcom chipset,
approach with caution).
QFX5100 works fine for MPLS.. ACX5k is QFX5100 hardware, but a
different train of software, and it's a bit different. QFX5100 is a
great P and lightweight PE..
As a P, fine (except if you're doing NG-MVPN, of course, which would
make it a poor branch router).
The "lightweight PE" is where my concern comes in. And if the EX4600 is
the same as the QFX in this regard, same problem, i.e., if the OP is
expecting all PE functionality he'd get on an MX in this unit, he needs
to reset his expectations.
Mark.
The EXes can also run in a "fabric extender" mode to the MX (and others?). Depending on geographical footprint and requirements, this might be worth a look.
Regards,
Tim.
On 4/12/16, 9:22 AM, "NANOG on behalf of Tim Jackson"
(Broadcom chipset,
approach with caution).
QFX5100 works fine for MPLS.. [snip] QFX5100 is a
great P and lightweight PE..
WG] For some values of "fine" and "great" perhaps, but emphasis on the
"lightweight" is important, as its suitability is heavily dependent on
your intended use case.
Use it with a few thousand routes and nothing particularly exotic as far
as features go and you should be fine. However, there are sometimes little
gotchas where established features (esp in MPLS) either are missing or
behave differently in subtle ways compared with more traditional JunOS
routers like the MX. Some of these are limitations in the Broadcom chipset
and some are driven by customer demand prioritizing feature completion.
Test carefully, and regard the higher-end multidimensional/route scale
numbers with healthy skepticism.
Wes George
Anything below this line has been added by my company’s mail server, I
have no control over it.
Someone told me to check out extreme networks, cisco or Ciena for the more
cost effective mpls kit. Any advice on which of the three would have the
most cost effective 10G MPLS switch?
Cisco's MPLS switch is the ASR 920 right?
The useful ones are the ASR920 and ME3600X/3800X.
The ASR920 is the way forward, and is generally half the price of the
ME3600X.
Mark.
I'm using Extreme switches for VPLS - the X460 will give you up to 6 x 10G
ports, and the X670 will give you 48 x 10G ports (and 4 x 40G ports). I've
not tried them as P nodes (we use Cisco for that), or for any other MPLS
features (L3VPN), but for VPLS they're working well for us. When we started
using them, they were significantly cheaper than Cisco alternatives.
Simon
Hi,
L2VPN works also pretty well with the Extremes (X670). Only one thing doesn't work: LACP BPDU forwarding for the customer. This is caused by the method how Extreme let you configure the L2VPN on those small boxes.
best regards
Jürgen Jaritsch
Head of Network & Infrastructure
ANEXIA Internetdienstleistungs GmbH
Telefon: +43-5-0556-300
Telefax: +43-5-0556-500
E-Mail: JJaritsch@anexia-it.com
Web: http://www.anexia-it.com
Anschrift Hauptsitz Klagenfurt: Feldkirchnerstraße 140, 9020 Klagenfurt
Geschäftsführer: Alexander Windbichler
Firmenbuch: FN 289918a | Gerichtsstand: Klagenfurt | UID-Nummer: AT U63216601
How does the ASR 903 compare to the 920? When we got pricing for the ASR
903 it was more expensive than a real ASR 9k router.
Feature-wise, it's more mature than the ASR920, as it came before.
Personally, I find it more of a device where you need a mix-and-match,
e.g., at a RAN site. Not my kind of thing; I focus purely on Ethernet in
a small form factor, which the ASR920 does very well.
But I'd move this query to c-nsp. There are a bunch of good folk there
that use the ASR903 and can speak more authoritatively about it than I can.
Mark.