Having used middleware in the past to do bandwidth
management, this doesn't scale well when your network grows,
and when off-net traffic (including that between your own
customers) is coming in from several points in the backbone.
On smaller networks, having middleware is easy because your
exit points are finite and fairly static. When you grow and
start peering, taking on several large customers that want
to talk to each other across your network, middleware
becomes cumbersome to deploy, because then not only can't
you assume that 80% of your traffic is HTTP, but you also
can't assume that 80% of your traffic is toward your
upstreams. Moreover, adding redundancy (as in multiple links
between routers/switches) makes the situation worse, because
middleware might not be as inclined, and arbitration of
bandwidth management across multiple middleware devices to
avoid accidentally over-provisioning to customers gets
expensive and complex.
I've since migrated to performing bandwidth management in
the router gear itself. This is easy if you're using high-
end kit (think Juniper M/MX/T, Cisco ASR1000/9000), but
significantly less so on wireline Metro-E networks (where
your Active-E comes in). But not anymore - there have been
meaningful developments in this area, and for some I've had
the pleasure of deploying, e.g., Cisco's ME3600X/3800X.
There also alternatives like Juniper's MX80 (too big, I
think, but the smallest you can get from them now) and
Brocade's NetIron CES/CER2000 units. These allow you to not
only gain decent feature set in the Access, but also let you
extend IP (and MPLS) into the edge too for additional
simplicity.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Mark.