Re: Migrating from PPP to DHCPo82

[Jack Bates <jbates () brightok net>]

On 11/9/2010 3:01 AM, Mark Smith wrote:
> Firstly, is your customer base primarily residential or is it
> SOHO/SME business (or something else entirely) ?

At that level, the customers are those of a traditional rural ILEC, 
which means all of the above.

> Secondly, would I be right if I assume that you pre-allocate and
> pre-configure the Q-in-Q id's per customer? Or are they some how
> dynamically allocated or configured (maybe just on the BRAS, not on
> the DSLAM), and reported via something like RADIUS? Something like the
> latter (if it exists) would make it easier to handle residential
> style/size customer bases.

Good old script, c&p for all dslams/ports into the router. I manage the 
router while telco manages the dslam, so I am usually configured well 
before they are. IOS is extremely limited, though Cisco has mentioned 
more dynamic profiles in the ASR line.

With my current Cisco setup, I'm screwed. The ASR w/ XE software has 
better support for radius backend. Juniper also has support for radius 
backends for their DHCP implementation. Both of course could do proxy, 
but I dislike the methodology. My rule is that the router should answer 
even if the pop is isolated, so when I do shift to radius, I will only 
accept an implementation that supports a default profile for when the 
radius servers are unreachable. This assists in troubleshooting and for 
pops that have local servers, it allows redirection for customer 
notification when there is an outage.

I've a long standing of using 7200s with IOS, but it is lacking a lot of 
support which Cisco is only putting in the ASR. I'm also considering 
switching to a non-cisco solution. It's just a matter of finding 
something that will do exactly what I want. Many of these ILECs are 
single router setups, so replacing the 7200 or putting something beside 
it requires a lot of capability and flexibility (mpls, v6, rsvp-te, 
is-is, BGP, and the BRAS functionality).


Jack