Re: Anyone Deployed Ascend's GRF IP Switch?

[Nathan Stratton <nathan () netrail net>]

On Mon, 1 Sep 1997, Damon Hammis wrote:

> Ciscos are much easier to work with though.

No way, some say the GRF is MUCH easier to work with. I admit if all you
know is cisco, it may be easier to work with cisco. I can config both vary
well, and I find the GRF easier to work with now that I have had some time
with them.

> One big down point on the GRF's imho is that in order to change anything
> with them you have to run a gdcreconfig, which stops and starts gated,
> effectively taking down the routing for a period of time, whereas you can
> add/remove a static route from a cisco and not bring down the routing.

Back the truck up, where did you get this? If I want to change gated.conf
I need to run gdc reconfig after I am done. This DOES NOT restart gated.
If you want to restart gatec then do a gdc restart or gdc stop then gdc
start. I would suggest you work with the GRF and then say what it can or
cant do. It would be almost impossible to work with a box that would
restart every time you wanted to change the configs. 

Also I know someone is going to say that you cant reset a single peer on a
GRF, but sorry Ascend fixed that.

> GRF's also take about 5-10 minutes to reboot, which can be annoying.

Hello? How many of them have you rebooted? Ok, I just rebooted
rt3.ATL.netrail.net and it took 139 seconds to come back up. That is 2.316
min. Ok, not lets try a cold start..... 127 seconds or 2.116 min. Ok, do
you now want me to run it on my cisco? :-)

Look, I will be the first to say that GRF has problem. Just call up
Ascend, I yell more then most because I have a lot of experience with gated
on my old PC routers. Ascend has fixed a large number of problems. There
will be more, just like cisco will have more problem. Ascend has as box
that is vary good, please look at the box before you slam it in public. 

> On the other hand it's quite easy to manage users and such with the GRF's
> , as they are BSD based.  Setting up authentication like Radius and
> SecurID is quite simple as well.
>
> Then there are the advantages of being able to use tools like nslookup and
> whois without having to open a shell somewhere.  Very nice while
> troubleshooting.
>
> So, as with any product comparison there are pros and cons to both.  I
> think that Cisco's are great, as I'm not a Unix/GateD guru, but I think
> that the Ascends have a bit more power to them and will be able to better
> handle the growing routing table.

Yes they have a lot more power to them.

> Just my 2 cents.

P.S. I do not work or speak for Ascend, I am just a happy customer that
has been working with the box for over a year. 


Nathan Stratton                             President, CTO, NetRail,Inc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phone   (888)NetRail                           NetRail, Inc.
Fax     (404)522-1939                          230 Peachtree Suite 500
WWW     http://www.netrail.net/                Atlanta, GA 30303
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his
great strength.                                        - Psalm 33:16


> --Damon
>
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > We are in the development phase of engineering the deployment of 
> > approximately
> > 60 POPs throughout the US.  Our 'standard' configuration is normally 
> > based upon
> > cisco equipment and more often than not consists of a 7513 connected 
> > to a Catalyst
> > 5000/5500 via FDDI with the various internal LAN segments switched
> > from there via FD 100BaseTX.
> >
> > We've begun to explore the viability of deploying the GRF for several 
> > reasons,
> > not the least of which is cost and performance.  Given (and taken 
> > with a grain
> > of salt) the apparent performance differential between the cisco 7513 
> > and the 
> > Ascend GRF (the GRF outperforms the 7513 substantially in our tests,) 
> > my
> > concerns are more operations-related. 
> >
> > The GRF DOES support the 'full' implementation (including extensions) 
> > of 
> > BGP4 and the other 'vanilla' TCP services that you'd come to expect 
> > from
> > a router (er, layer 3 switch?) of this caliber.  Since it's NOT a 
> > cisco, 
> > we'd have to deviate and not utilize EIGRP as our IGP of choice, and 
> > deploy
> > OSPF which poses its own set of issues.
> >
> > SO, the bottom line...has anyone else deployed multiple GRF400's with 
> > success.  
> > Ascend will tell you that UUNET has deployed (or is going to) a 
> > hundred or so.
> > I want to talk to people USING the technology, not thinking about it.
> >
> > Your comments and opinions are welcomed.
> >
> > TIA,
> >
> > Christofer Hoff
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0
> > Charset: noconv
> >
> > iQA/AwUBM/3KcnRoVZYHVpX1EQKKwgCgsnu30mTvCXZRyH68TOWeq3z0uZkAnj0F
> > Kmgl0te7Wq6AzsQ1/0GjMV5N
> > =d5NC
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> >             ,,,
> >            (o-o)
> > ------.oOO--(_)--OOo.---------------------------------
> > Christofer L. Hoff            \  No true genius is
> > Chief Nerd,                    \  possible without a
> > NodeWarrior Networks, Inc       \  little intelligent
> >                                  \  madness!
> > hoff () nodewarrior net              \
> > http://www.nodewarrior.net         \ -Peter Uberoth
> > "Nuthin' but Net!"                  \
> > ------------------------------------------------------
> >        310.568.1700 vox - 310.568.4766 fax
>
>
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Damon Hammis                    Email:  damonh () netrex com
> Network Engineer                URL:    http://www.netrex.com
> Netrex, Inc.                    Voice:  248-352-9643
> 3000 Town Center, Suite 1100    FAX:    248-352-2375
> Southfield, MI  48075
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>       "Hard work is for people short on talent"
>
> ============================== ISP Mailing List ==============================
> Email ``unsubscribe'' to inet-access-request () earth com to be removed.
> Don't post messages that just say ``me too''.
>
> ----- End of forwarded message from Damon Hammis -----
>
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Damon Hammis                    Email:  damonh () netrex com
> Network Engineer                URL:    http://www.netrex.com
> Netrex, Inc.                    Voice:  248-352-9643
> 3000 Town Center, Suite 1100    FAX:    248-352-2375
> Southfield, MI  48075
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>       "Hard work is for people short on talent"