Re: MPLS/MEF Switches and NIDs

[Colton Conor <colton.conor () gmail com>]

It's not 100 percent about cost, but cost is a big concern.

My minimum requirement is a box that has 4 10G ports, and supports G.8032.
MPLS / Segment routing would be nice, but not required.

So far, I have yet to find anything comparable to Ciena' 3924. It's got 4
10G SFP+, and then 4 1G SFP's. Hardware costs about $550 new, and their
mandatory base software plus the 10G licenses add about $400, bringing the
total cost to $950. Then, they have an optional MPLS / Segment Routing
advanced layer 3 feature set, costing at least another $200, bringing the
total cost to $1150.

Anyone know something close in pricing to compare to? Note this is general
Ciena pricing, nothing special.

Mikrotik has a couple of options below this $1000 price point, but that
would not work.





On Mon, May 31, 2021 at 4:03 PM Adam Thompson <athompson () merlin mb ca>
wrote:

> EXOS is a perfectly good OS that bears absolutely *no* resemblance to
> anything else you've ever used in your career.  If you start from scratch
> without training courses, you're looking at wasting 6 months (maybe more)
> just learning the OS well enough to figure out how to configure your
> desired deployment.  Then you get to the usual month or so of fine-tuning
> required that every product needs.
>
> Given how many companies will pay for training nowadays, it's a relevant
> concern IMHO.
>
> Now that I'm used to EXOS, I like it.  But I would never recommend an EXOS
> newbie start a project with a product that runs EXOS, without some
> jump-start training.  It really is/was that painful.  It's like giving a
> 100% Windows admin a UNIX box to get the new service running on, with no
> training.  (Or vice-versa.)
>
> NOTE: Extreme's goal (supposedly targeting 2021) was to ship one common
> hardware platform that could run any of their 3 OSes.  I don't know if
> they're achieved it, but generally speaking, for any EXOS box, there's
> two more products, one running the Nortel/Avaya OS and one IronWare
> (Foundry/Broadcom), both of which are fairly "normal".
>
> -Adam
>
> *Adam Thompson*
> Consultant, Infrastructure Services
> [image: 1593169877849]
> 100 - 135 Innovation Drive
> Winnipeg, MB, R3T 6A8
> (204) 977-6824 or 1-800-430-6404 (MB only)
> athompson () merlin mb ca
> www.merlin.mb.ca
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Colton Conor <colton.conor () gmail com>
> *Sent:* May 31, 2021 15:30
> *To:* Adam Thompson <athompson () merlin mb ca>
> *Cc:* NANOG <nanog () nanog org>
> *Subject:* Re: MPLS/MEF Switches and NIDs
>
> Adam.
>
> When you say "Beware using any EXOS-based product (anything that starts
> with "X") unless you're already familiar with EXOS!" Are you saying stay
> away from this line completely, or what do you mean by this statement. I
> have heard good things about Extreme for deploying service provider G.8032
> and MPLS functions.
>
> Yes, I was aware of https://www.mef.net/certify/technology-registry/ and
> have gone through pretty much every vendor looking at their solutions.
> Extreme for example is not listed at all, so I guess they didn't want to
> pay those fees! There are quite a few Chinese vendors we can't use.
>
>
> On Mon, May 31, 2021 at 12:44 PM Adam Thompson <athompson () merlin mb ca>
> wrote:
>
> Extreme has excellent MEF implementations.  I've never used their MPLS
> implementations, but it's definitely there on, I think, all their
> products.  I only have the X620 model in my network, which may or may not
> work for you.  Beware using any EXOS-based product (anything that starts
> with "X") unless you're already familiar with EXOS!  I cannot emphasise
> this enough!
> Extreme's other product lines come from Nortel/Avaya and Broadcom
> heritage, and also have good MEF implementations (and more-or-less-sane
> OSes).  They have MPLS support, but again, no experience with it.
> I can't give much advice on pricing as I get both edu & gov discounts, but
> they are competitive with Arista and Cisco when we go to RFP.
>
> Also, Juniper's MX (and maybe PTX?) families support MEF if that's a hard
> requirement.  I know *some* but not all EX switches have had both MEF and
> MPLS, too.  Beware many EX models have pretty minimalist MPLS
> implementations (e.g. no VPLS).  Agreed on their pricing, though, which is
> why I don't have any 🙂.  But for 4x10G the MX104 is a very nice box - if
> you can afford it.
>
> Lastly, have you seen https://www.mef.net/certify/technology-registry/ ?
>
> -Adam
>
> *Adam Thompson*
> Consultant, Infrastructure Services
> [image: 1593169877849]
> 100 - 135 Innovation Drive
> Winnipeg, MB, R3T 6A8
> (204) 977-6824 or 1-800-430-6404 (MB only)
> athompson () merlin mb ca
> www.merlin.mb.ca
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* NANOG <nanog-bounces+athompson=merlin.mb.ca () nanog org> on behalf
> of Colton Conor <colton.conor () gmail com>
> *Sent:* May 26, 2021 11:39
> *To:* NANOG <nanog () nanog org>
> *Subject:* MPLS/MEF Switches and NIDs
>
> For MPLS and MEF switches, I know Juniper, Cisco, and Nokia are commonly
> talked about on this list. However, I was wondering if anyone has
> evaluated other brands? We are not interested in looking at chinese based
> vendors, so ZTE and Huawei are not an option. Anyone else worth looking
> into?
>
> We have used Juniper's ACX line primarily, but there is a big gap in their
> product line. The ACX2200 has only two 10G ports. The next jump up from
> there is the ACX710 with 24 10G ports. They have nothing in between that
> has 4-12 10G ports. Not to mention, Juniper is very proud price wise. We
> are looking for cost efficient 10G NIDs with at least 4 10G ports on them
> and aggregation boxes with at least 12 10G ports on them with 25g/100G
> uplinks.
>
> Ciena seems to have multiple options available with Segment Routing, MPLS,
> and streaming telemetry support. I am probably most interested in
> what Ciena has to offer. Has anyone deployed the 3000 or 5000 product line
> of Ciena? How does it compare to Juniper? The Ciena 3924 is sub $1000 for
> example, and has 4 10G ports on it.
>
> Adva has quite a few options as well, but I don't think their routing
> stack is as strong as Ciena's.
>
> Tejas was an unknown player to me, but they seem to have a couple of
> options that fit the bill. Price wise, I have heard the run circles around
> everyone.
>
> RAD has some options, but their pricing looks much higher than Ciena.
>
> Accedian looked interesting, but it seems they don't make aggregation
> switches, only NIDs.
>
> ECI Telecom / Ribbon seems to have some options, but I have not talked to
> them.
>
> What does Nokia and Cisco have in this space, and price wise is it going
> to compare to these less known vendors?