Talking about the GRF, Paul asks someone:
You have determined that it is possibly a better product for your needs. How is support (sales pukes don't count)?
Here are some quotes clipped from the NANOG mailing list re the GRF. The list is available on the web with a searchable index so you can check up on my editing biases :-) The last clip mentions support. It is interesting that these people seem more than willing to replace vendor A with vendor C and vice versa without a 2nd thought if a product doesn't do what they want.
1) PSI used to feed our site with a Cisco 7xxx and changed to a GRF400. The OpenROUTE Networks RBX250 router we use to talk to it had no problems with either. Actual packet throughput appears to be improved since the router was swapped, which I assume was the reason for the replacement. I haven't noticed a substantial difference in the speed with which the advertisements roll in. Either upstream box pumped out the BGP advertisements when the line first comes up at about 60% of the T1. Neither box pushes harder than that.
2) So far we are happy with the GRF, there are some thing I would like to see. I think there is a need for redundant processor cards, and the ability to load balance over interfaces. I still think the GRF blows away the Cisco 7500, but we have not tested the new RSP4 cards. We plan to test this in the next few weeks, and will then decided if we are going to say cisco free, or if we need to make a hardware change.
3) The router is quite spectacular, Our backbone is 155M based and so far the GRF hasn't had a single problem in over 3 weeks of testing.
The only thing that pisses me off about Ascend is that the documentation could be better.
4) I'm using the GRF-400. It has multiple 155M SDH ATM links in it, works like a dream...
Yes the ATM card is nice, so far we have over 138 external peering session without problem.
5) I am happy with them we have 14 in our network right now. Yes they have some small problems, but Ascend GRF tech support is the best I have seen. We have some new Cisco stuff on the way, and in a few weeks will know if we are going to ditch GRF and with with Cisco. So far we are still 100% cisco free, but that may change in a few weeks.
// marc |
