RE: Advice on dealing with Sprint

[cdc () GroupZ net (Christopher Caldwell)]

I called Sprint.  They said to multihome, load balance across to distinct
backbones (i.e Sprint & UUNET), and accept the full routing table, I'd have
to use a 7000 series.

I didn't believe them, so I logged a call with the TAC.  They said they knew
of no technical reason why the 4500 wouldn't do the trick, but maybe I
should call my sales engineer.  

My sales engineer said the 4500 would to the trick (of course they'd prefer
to sell me a 7000), but I might have to accept reduced routes or perform
some other kludge to reduce the load on the router; and no telling what the
performance would be like 2 months from now.

Note:  Our primary interest is bypassing problems we're experiencing between
Sprint and UUNET via MAE-E, but we'd like to offer the best connectivity to
our web servers.

I called Sprint back, and they said they could work out a 'Special Customer
Arrangement' to deal with the 4500.

Based on the e-mail addresses I see on this group, it seems like we should
be able to come to some consensus about the
viability/sensibility/performance related issues related to this topology.



>       I'm extremely suprised that this is their stance.  I'm pressed to find a
> technical reason behind such a requirement.  The 7000 is a Motorola 68XXX
> based system, and the 4500/4700 is a risc based system.  There have been
> performance tests that have shown that the 45/47 boxes out perform the 
> 7000 boxes.  I'd be very interested in hearing Sprints' reasoning on this.

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