Re: Force10 E300 vs. Juniper MX480

["John Sweeting" <John.Sweeting () tatacommunications com>]

I certainly agree with Keith and we are pushing "a lot" of traffic through our Force10 boxes i.e. E1200's, E600's and a 
few E300's. As a company they are wery responsive and easy to work with. Dual cam is definitely recommended.

----- Original Message -----
From: Keith O'neill <keith () pando com>
To: Chris Marlatt <cmarlatt () rxsec com>
Cc: nanog <nanog () merit edu>
Sent: Fri Jul 18 10:34:51 2008
Subject: Re: Force10 E300 vs. Juniper MX480


Force 10 is fine. I do suggest he go with the dual cam cards over the regular cards. I am not sure what Chris is 
talking about but I have used Force 10 for a long time, E, C and S series and have found it very stable. It will do 
everything you want and then some. The E300 is a good bang for the buck. Sure Foundry might be cheaper but I hear more 
complaining about Foundry than any other platform.

Chris you want to share what issues you have seen with Force 10.

Keith

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Marlatt" <cmarlatt () rxsec com>
To: "Joe Abley" <jabley () ca afilias info>
Cc: "nanog" <nanog () merit edu>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 7:43:33 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: Re: Force10 E300 vs. Juniper MX480

Joe Abley wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> An acquaintance who runs an ISP with an M7i on its border is looking to 
> upgrade, because the M7i is starting to creak from all the flesh-tone 
> MPEGs his customers are sharing. (How times have changed. Back when I 
> was chasing packets, it was flesh-tone JPEGs.)
>
> He's looking at the MX480 and the E300.
>
> The MX480 is attractive because the M7i has been stable as a rock, and 
> he's familiar with JUNOS.
>
> The E300 is attractive because it's half the price of the MX480, and has 
> the potential to hold layer-2 cards as well as layer-3 ports which makes 
> the price per port much more reasonable than the MX480. But he has no 
> experience with Force10 at any ISO layer higher than 2.
>
> He doesn't have any exotic requirements beyond OSPF, OSPFv3, BGP, IP and 
> IPv6. There's no MPLS in the picture, for example. However, he's going 
> to want four or five full tables plus a moderate load of peering routes 
> in there. And maybe VRRP.
>
> Thoughts from people who have tried one or the other, or both? Or who 
> have faced this kind of problem, and came up with a different answer?
>
> Feel free to send mail off-list; I can summarise if there is interest.
>
>
> Joe

I would avoid Force10 if at all possible. In the network I managed I've 
had some fairly surprising stability problems with their S series 
switches and feature problems (or lack there of) on their E series. 
Things you kind of scratch your head at and wonder what they were 
thinking. Juniper on the other hand is indeed a bit pricier but quite a 
stable platform. If he has to look at alternatives I would suggest 
Foundry, either the RX-8, MLX-8, or XMR-8000 (depending on requirements) 
for comparable models to the MX480.

Regards,

        Chris