Re: New Equipment - Anybody try'em?

[Matthew Petach <mpetach () netflight com>]

> Hi,
>
> Are there Net operators of large corporations or ISPs who have
> had a chance to evaluate new network equipment released over the
> last year? 

Yes.  (that was an easy one!) :-)
 
> I know from previous postings that ISPs have started using the 
> GRF with reasonable success. Anybody out these using Ipsilons
> IP switches? The way I understand these, they have (fast)ethernet
> and ATM (at OC-3 rates) ports available and can do RIP and OSPF
> making them suitable for Interior Routing. I am not sure if they
> support BGP or for that matter if the IP switch concept would scale
> (in terns of VCIs needed) to full fledged ISP load.

Internex is.  See the announcement at: http://www.ipsilon.com/.
Currently they don't support BGP yet.  They're more suited for
access connectivity than backbone connectivity, e.g.. for wiring up
a building, for example, where you want to be able to use a
single pipe in, but carve out specific chunks of bandwidth for
specific customers or specific services without requiring ATM
to the desktop.  The other concern of course is that they do
have a hard disk in them for the OS on the controller, so you're
not going to want to deploy them in unmanned locations.  If you
have a disk failure, you want someone right there able to swap
drives as quickly as possible.  :)

> Would greatly appreciate any first hand experience. TIA.

Thus far Internex has been very happy with the Ipsilon
switches, and we have plans to continue deploying them
at access locations and within webfarms throughout our
network.
 
> -dj

Matt Petach