Re: Juniper MX Sizing

[Brad Fleming <bdflemin () gmail com>]

We have both Brocade CER and XMR (predecessor to the MLXe) in our environment today. We find both platforms attractive 
from a price and power consumption standpoint. They will both handle the IPv4 and IPv6 unicast routing tables today.* 
The MLXe with MR2 cards is quite a formidable box; lots of power and pretty light-weight OS (compared to Junos). We 
found our XMR nodes with original mgmt cards and Gen1 line cards converge pretty quick; we’ve never timed one 
officially but my gut feeling is RIB+FIB convergence is roughly 45sec assuming your peer is RTT nearby. The CER is a 
little slower to converge in our experience; however, we have them in non-critical portions of the network so I can’t 
really attest to their convergence performance. Sorry.. not much in the way of lab readings for our Brocade gear.



> On Dec 5, 2014, at 2:09 PM, Ammar Zuberi <ammar () fastreturn net> wrote:
>
> What’s a cheaper alternative to the MX104s?
>
> We take a full BGP table and are on the AMS-IX and DE-CIX and are looking for a new router. The MX series looks a bit 
> out of budget but we’re currently looking into the Brocade MLX series. We push under 10Gbps, but we do need 10Gbps 
> routing due to capacity issues during attacks.
>
> Sorry for being a bit off-topic here.
>
> Ammar
>
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> > On Dec 6, 2014, at 12:01 AM, Brad Fleming <bdflemin () gmail com <mailto:bdflemin () gmail com>> wrote:
> >
> > Then you should look for something other then the MX104.
> >
> > In our testing an MX104 running Junos 13.3R4 with a single, full feed took about 4min 25sec to (1) converge the RIB 
> > from a router sitting 0.5ms RTT away and (2) update the FIB with all entries. This performance was observed with 
> > single RE and dual RE and without any excess services running. If we added inline-flow sampling to the device full 
> > convergence took closer to 5min 45sec in our lab. Efforts to bring the convergence time down (without filtering 
> > ingress advertisements) with the assistance of JTAC proved unsuccessful.
> >
> > We decided to “bite the bullet” and procure MX480s instead but obviously that’s not possible for everyone. If the 
> > MX480 is out of the question a Brocade CER Premium is an option. We have 3 in production and see very attractive 
> > convergence times; however, they have a more limited feature set and you’ll want to understand how their FIB memory 
> > scales. Apologies, I don’t know the Cisco equivalent from the ASR line these days but I’m sure others on the list 
> > could help out.
> >
> >
> > > On Dec 5, 2014, at 11:45 AM, Graham Johnston <johnstong () westmancom com <mailto:johnstong () westmancom com>> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > Shawn,
> > >
> > > It's more about FIB than RIB as I am concerned about the time it takes until MPCs have updated route information 
> > > after large scale changes in routes learned via BGP.
> > >
> > > Graham Johnston
> > > Network Planner
> > > Westman Communications Group
> > > 204.717.2829
> > > johnstong () westmancom com <mailto:johnstong () westmancom com>
> > > think green; don't print this email.
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Shawn Hsiao [mailto:phsiao () tripadvisor com] 
> > > Sent: Friday, December 05, 2014 11:30 AM
> > > To: Graham Johnston
> > > Cc: nanog () nanog org
> > > Subject: Re: Juniper MX Sizing
> > >
> > >
> > > Is your sizing concern just for the RIB, or also for FIB to sync up?   The latter was a problem for us, but not the 
> > > former.   We also have inline-jflow turned on and that is still a work-in-progress in terms of impacting 
> > > performance.
> > >
> > > We are using MX104 for similar purposes for many months now, and with some tweaks in our procedures and 
> > > configurations we found it to be acceptable.    MX104 may not be able to process routes as fast as MX480, but MX480 
> > > is also not instantaneous either so similar risks exist.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Dec 5, 2014, at 11:59 AM, Graham Johnston <johnstong () westmancom com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I am wondering if anyone can provide their real world experience about sizing Juniper MX routers as it relates to 
> > > > BGP.  I am needing a device that has a mix of layer 2 and 3 features, including MPLS, that will have a very low 
> > > > port count requirement that will primarily be used at a remote POP site to connect to the local IX as well as one 
> > > > or two full route transit providers.  The MX104 has what I need from a physical standpoint and a data plane 
> > > > standpoint, as well as power consumption figures.  My only concern is whether the REs have enough horsepower to 
> > > > churn through the convergence calculations at a rate that operators in this situation would find acceptable.  I 
> > > > realize that 'acceptable' is a moving target so I would happily accept feedback from people using them as to how 
> > > > long it takes and their happiness with the product.
> > > >
> > > > For those of you that deem the MX104 unacceptable in this kind of role and moved up to the MX240, what RE did you 
> > > > elect to use?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Graham Johnston
> > > > Network Planner
> > > > Westman Communications Group
> > > > 204.717.2829
> > > > johnstong () westmancom com<mailto:johnstong () westmancom com>
> > > > P think green; don't print this email.