So Juniper have gone ahead and announced the EoL of some key devices that, IMHO, are nowhere near past their prime:
MX204 (to be replaced by the MX304)
MX10003 (to be replaced by the MX304)
PTX1000 (to be replaced by the PTX10001)
Re: the PTX1000, I know it is a component issue that Juniper have mentioned is the reason for EoL’ing this. We bought a fair bit in the past 2 years, and technically, there is nothing wrong with them. We are going ahead with the PTX10001 as a replacement, because it works technically and otherwise.
Having both the MX10003 and MX304 in the same portfolio did not make any sense to me, and I did challenge Juniper on this over the past several weeks as to what their strategy for both platforms is. I guess we now have an answer :-. Pity - we started buying the MX10003 last year, but I have no problem with the MX304 as long as the price continues to work.
The MX204 is pure shocker! Unless the MX304 will come with a license-based approach to run at MX204 pricing, that is Juniper shooting themselves in the foot.
This chip shortage issue is, I think, being used as a crutch to take the p*ss.
The MX204 is pure shocker! Unless the MX304 will come with a
license-based approach to run at MX204 pricing, that is Juniper shooting
themselves in the foot.
Unless I'm missing a trick, the MX304 doesn't have an answer to installing DWDM, bidi, or other fancy optics in the SPF+ ports on the MX204. QSFP+ breakout to 4 x 10G is supported, but only 4 x vanilla 1310 optics - you'll need an external OEO solution if you want fancy 10G options.
It otherwise seems a nice box on paper, although substantially more expensive than the MX204.
These EOLd are HMC devices, Micron EOLd HMC back in 2018, no one else made them.
MX304 is a very different device than MX80, MX104, MX204. Previously
these were single chip very BOM optimised devices. MX304 has YT on
each card, which also means half of the YT capacity is spent on
fabric. Whereas MX80, MX104 connect ports on fabric and wan side,
getting 200% bps compared to fabric model.
Of course BOM isn't a meaningful contributor to what customers generally pay.
Hybrid Memory Cube, type of stacked DRAM, with shorter distance due to
stack. HMC was early contender and for some applications superior, but
HBM ended up winning the fight.
YT is the latest Trio generation, if it is acronym, I have no idea
what it is from. The EOL is about EA Trio, I believe that is from
EAgle.
BOM means to me BillOfMaterials, but I'm not sure I have that correct.
All this will do is keep these boxes off the open market, which will simply bump up open market prices, with no incentive for the majority of folk to buy directly from the OEM.
I suspect supply chain will improve within the next 12 months, but then regress and hit a massive crunch from around Q4'23 onward. How long for, I can't say...
I've been sampling a fairly wide variety of sources in various parts of the global supply chain, and my synthesis of what they're saying is that we probably won't *consistently* have the ready availability of "stuff" (both electronic and not) we had pre-pandemic, for the rest of my career (10-15yrs), and maybe not in the lifetimes of anyone reading this today, either.
Whether those sources are accurate, their interpretation is accurate, my synthesis is accurate, whether I'm listening to the right people in the first place... all debatable. I sure hope the above conclusion is wrong.
One possible upside: it might slow down the incessant upgrade hamster-wheel we're all running on? Imagine having enough time to do your job thoroughly and properly... Yes, I know I'm dreaming :-).
As for 10G DWDM optics, it’s not a very efficient way to use your ports, but you could hypothetically use a QSFP+ to SFP+ adapter like this one if you truly needed to run some in your MX304 chassis: https://www.flexoptix.net/en/transceiver/q-pct.html
I’m definitely feeling a bit more of this - we are seeing quite a bit of mismatch as well in hardware where higher speeds are coming but without a firm consensus around optics. At least for the 400G space it seems to be largely sorted, as DR, FR and LR are all interchangeable it’s largely that receiver sensitivity which comes into scope, and the LR8 being there, but unlikely to see a lot of volume over time.
Reminds me a lot of the DS3 vs OC3 vs gigE days of “what speed, how many”, but at least we have bundling figured out at this point.
I think the more common solution for something like that would be to use one 100GbE port as a trunk on a MX204 or MX304 to a directly adjacent 1U 48-port SFP+ switch in a purely L2 role used as a port expander, with dwdm/bidi/other unique types of SFP+ optics inserted in that.
That was the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines for every major chip manufacturer on the planet.
Chip shortages will only get worse for the next several years. The light at the end of the tunnel is unfortunately not coming from an ultraviolet lithography machine.
That was the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines for every major chip manufacturer on the planet.
Chip shortages will only get worse for the next several years. The light at the end of the tunnel is unfortunately not coming from an ultraviolet lithography machine.
Like, deploying the other 300 million IPv4 addresses that are currently
lying around unused. They remain formally unused due to three
interlocking supply chain problems: at IETF, ICANN, and vendors. IETF's
is caused by a "we must force everyone to abandon trailing edge
technology" attitude. ICANN's is because nobody is sure how to allocate
~$15B worth of end-user value into a calcified IP address market
dominated by government-created regional monopolies doing allocation by
fiat.
Vendors have leapfrogged the IETF and ICANN processes, and most have
deployed the key one-line software patches needed to fully enable these
addresses in OS's and routers. Microsoft is the only major vendor
seemingly committed to never doing so. Our project continues to track
progress in this area, and test and document compatability.
It's quite trendy (but inaccurate) to declare that everything sucks,
human life on the planet is ending, etc. Matthew's last paragraph seems
to be one of those unduly dire conclusions, based on subsequent news
after January. See:
Those with a detailed interest in the topic can speak directly with
Monique Mols, head of media relations at ASML.com, at +31 652 844 418,
or Ryan Young, US media relations manager, +1 480 205 8659. Ryan
confirmed to me today that the latest news is in the above links: there
is expected to be no impact from the fire on ASML's extreme UV delivery
schedule. He says they will provide a further update at their large
annual meeting in about a month.
"you are correct that there isn’t a native 10G SFP+ form factor offered with the 304.
QSA adapters are qualified (say for example, Nvidia), and from there it can support native 10G Bidi, WDM, etc. The economics per-port, obviously, get a little expensive with this approach if a lot of native 10G is needed and breakout isn’t an option.
Thanks!"
Oh and also I just got the call, Juniper is forcing a Price Hike in July.
