Yes -- but is it ancient history to the ISP's who might have second
thoughts on the stability of Cisco switches?
This comment I responded to a week ago. First to respond to Jon...Unfortunately this does look like a cisco switch problem. HOwever, Cisco has handled this situation admirably by stepping up and taking blame then flying out (by charter) new switches to handle this problem. This is far different from other networkerers who have had failures and wouldn't admit to them until forced to. This is why Cisco is number 1 - service.
Now Soumya, to answer your question.
The AT&T Interspan network is the largest network of it's kind on the planet. That network has been growing at an unbelievable pace and been consistently doing it before CSCC was even a company. Because of this Cisco/Strm has more experience in building networks like this than any other networker with the possible exception of NT (LU is knowledgable but has not, as a single entity, built a big network yet). Even NT hasn't scaled a frame relay or ATM network as large as Interspan. So, given this it very well may be that Cisco/Strm have found and fixed problems that these other organizations don't even know exist! When it comes to scaling and the knowledge of how to do it Cisco is way ahead of the competition. Sure they have a price/port issue which I hope they're solving and perhaps they don't discount as aggressively as the competition, but when it comes to building big networks and supplying the service to keep 'em running, no one does it better.
Now, I'm sure Cisco will do a far better job than I in telling this story, so I have no concerns whatsoever about other ISP's buying into the Cisco Powered Network program. They provide the hardware, software, network knowledge, service, and experience that can not be matched...from prem to prem. In addition they are pushing the envelope of multiservice and are Wwaaaaay ahead of the competition here. So, again...no concerns on my part.
Gary |
