On a recent event I could meet with lots of people from carriers of all sizes in the LAC region, so I will summarize based on the overall experience: - There were far more stories of instability on the 7600 than on Juniper, even from those that uses both as Ps and PEs. I can't precise whether the Junipear gear was M-, MX- or T- series. IOS versions that solved that bug that was annoying but introduced some different bugs of their own were also a popular quote. - On the other hand, people with simpler 7600 configurations had less problems and could use more IOS versions that the others. That's my direct experience: with no FlexWAN, OSMs or ES-20s service cards, you have much more flexibility in adopting newer software and has fewer bugs to deal with. - Support experience with Cisco from carriers that had either Cisco SmartNET contracts or Cisco Shared Support from one Cisco Partner (let's name them and reward their good service: NEC) was rather good, but other Cisco Shared Support partners were awful at supporting carrier needs. Support experience with Juniper was good whether they called a partner(the same partner serves most or all of Juniper carrier customers in the region) or Juniper directly.
Based on that experience, may I suggest some ideas ? 1) If you are going to avoid using 7600 with service cards, then don't get a 7600. Get a ME6500 or some other Catalyst with the port density you need. No VPLS, some restrictions on EoMPLS (port or subinterface but no VLAN-based EoMPLS), but they cost much less, are stable and made by a friendly BU. ME6500 has H-VPLS, so you can provide VPLS services if you have a VPLS concentrator somewhere, which then would be a pricier 7600, or a Juniper with low port density (M7i-2GE for instance). 2) If you buy Cisco gear and don't know wether you Shared Support partner will do a good job, buy some boxes with SmartNET and some boxed with Shared Support for the 2nd year. On the 1st year you will probably get SmarNET because of Cisco sales policies, so you will already have a quality to compare to. From 2nd year on, Shared Support will be much cheaper and you will be tempted to buy all support in this flavor, but beware of the provider you don't know yet. 3) Think a lot before doing VPLS services, as the customer may think it's good due to no subnetting or renumbering, but point-to-multipoint is something that I really prefer to see routed. IP VPN with Multicast can probably fit most customer needs instead of VPLS. Rubens On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 1:00 AM, Kris Price <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > We're looking at 7600 + RSP720 platform and the MX from Juniper for our MPLS > needs and I was interested in hearing feedback from people about their > experiences - both positive and negative - with either platforms. > > Whatever is selected will be used both as Ps and PEs w/ all 10GE on the core > side. This is a fairly large (continental) deployment, and it will set the > standard internationally for this customer. Main use will be for IP VPN and > EoMPLS, but VPLS may show up in the future too. > > Looks like they both will work for our needs. So what it really comes down > to is important things like *stability*, support experience, etc. > > Please contact me off list if you'd rather not express something in public. > > Feedback is very much appreciated. :) > > Cheers > Kris > _______________________________________________ > cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] > https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp > archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/ > _______________________________________________ cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
