Re: Mx204 alternative

[Mehmet Akcin <mehmet () akcin net>]

Thank you! Very useful

Certainly i have concerns about the software as well

On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 8:35 PM Brandon Martin <lists.nanog () monmotha net>
wrote:

> On 8/7/19 11:02 PM, Mehmet Akcin wrote:
> > I am looking for some suggestions on alternatives to mx204.
> >
> > Any recommendations on something more affordable which can handle full
> > routing tables from two providers?
> >
> > Prefer Juniper but happy to look alternatives.
> > Min 6-8 10G ports are required
> > 1G support required
>
> Extreme (ex Brocade) SLX9540 will do full tables from a couple providers
> in a local edge scenario with their "OptiScale" FIB optimization/route
> caching, but the whole FIB won't fit in hardware.  Bandwidth is very
> generous (up to 48x10G + 6x100G), and prices are reasonable.  You
> wouldn't need any of the stupid port licenses, just the advanced feature
> license, so it should be about 25-40% more than an MX204 based on public
> pricing I've seen.  That would get you 24x10G + 24x1G (the rest of the
> hardware is all there just locked out).
>
> The SLX9650 will supposedly (if marketing and my SEs are to believed) do
> 4M IPv4 in hardware FIB, less if you want IPv6, too but still full
> tables of both with ample room for L2 MACs, next-hops, and MPLS.
> Bandwidth is, well, "Extreme" at I think 24x25G + 12x100G (25G breakout
> capable, all 25G also capable of 1G/10G).  Pricing is supposedly "about
> double" a 9540.
>
> Be advised that the control plane SOFTWARE is NOT as mature as JunOS.
> It's being built up rapidly, but there's still a lot of stuff missing.
> I have not, so far, run into any of the weird glitches that I've seen on
> older Foundry/Brocade products, though, so that's good.  There's also no
> oddball restrictions about port provisioning like the MX204 has.
> Control plane HARDWARE is well more than capable with something like
> 16GB (or maybe 32?) of RAM and a Xeon CPU.  There's actually a fully
> supported option for a guest VM for local analytics, SDN, etc. in remote
> scenarios.
>
> If you just want to push packets, they're nice boxes.  If you want "high
> touch" service provider features, I think you may find them lacking.
> They're worth looking at, though, if only because of the
> price/performance ratio.
>
> Arista has some similar boxes with similar caveats in terms of infantile
> software.
>
> MX204 is a very nice pizza box router for service providers.  I'm not
> aware of anything quite like it in terms of having a mature control
> plane.  I like the JunOS config language better than Cisco-style that
> most other folks use.
> --
> Brandon Martin
-- 
Mehmet
+1-424-298-1903