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Opinions on Alternatives to Cisco Routers?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm currently working on a project that is 'partnered' with Cisco. Despite that they make good routers, the company's relatively large size does not appear to be willing to meeting unique, customized, requirements. So what are your opinions of the alternatives: 3com, Juniper, etc? Anyone had bad/good experience with these companies? Are all their routers really essentially the same? How about comparative performance with totally customized routing solutions via Linux+Zebra or some other open solution?"
Don't for a instant use some elses-cisco WILL take it as a slap in the face. If you need something custom-goto someone on their end in charge, and request either the equipment, or someone whom they approve that WILL do what you want. I've dealt with Cisco before.
That said - what kind of customization are you looking for... Cisco is the gold standard on most things IP infrastructure these days.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
There are plenty of router companies. Cisco is most popular, but that is the only thing you can easily see. Any other advantage needs to be tested in the real world (or in a lab).
Plenty of companies are as good or better, but until you define your requirements (to the point that few of us are qualified to comment) nobody can say which is really better.
IP is standard. There isn't much that someone can do different and still be correct. Firewalls, speed, and some max capacity. IPv6 would be nice too. Figure your needs and then ask who will meet them.
I've worked with and around several companies trying to knock Cisco off. It is hard because even when you have a technical advantage Cisco dominates. Sort of like how Microsoft dominates, but not as extreme, and Cisco has never been accused of being quite that evil.
And beware of slick salesman who will promise you any feature you ask for in order to get a sale.
don't listen to the other guy saying cisco will take it personal. First they won't even know, second we are a cisco partner and it's actually a pretty rare experience to even talk to someone at cisco (unless your techs are idiots and have to call them left and right).
If you have to go with something other than cisco you may as well be using your own linux solution (since they are basically all using embedded linux ANYWAY). Go with something like a via mini-itx board/case (rather nice solid case on caseoutlet.com that I use alot) or a ppc board.
Either way the main thing your looking for is something that can be passively cooled. I recommend having a case with a fan even if the chip is supposedly passively cooled. That way if the fan dies on you it's not a big deal. You also want solid state storage and enough ram to run the OS out of it. The general idea is to eliminate moving parts. Once you are running completely out of memory, and have no essential moving parts... you've got dedicated hardware devices matched at least equaled in this respect. And a 1ghz c3 at the very least equals 200mhz specialty chip (which are quite rare in practice despite everyone citing them to defend said routers).
Nope, the biggest concern your going to have is bus speed. I'd keep it in mind.
Can I slap an OC-48 card in a PC? Unlikely. OC-192? How about 10GigE? Again, unlikely. For some of us, PCs can't compete with dedicated routing hardware. Even PCs that can handle large amounts of traffic can't switch at wirespeed. The key is programmable ASICs, pure and simple. If it's hitting the CPU too often (which all switching/routing on a PC must do) then we have a problem.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Your problem seems paradoxical. If your company isn't that big, I don't see how you would need any customization beyond what anyone off the street could get from Cisco. On the flip side, if you are that big, Cisco (as well as other companies) will do quite a bit to make sure you're happy.
The biggest downside with Cisco is, undeniably, price.
Well, you aren't paying for the kit, you're paying for the support infrastructure they have in place. Sure it's expensive upfront, but if something goes wrong, you'll be glad you did.
Okay, so I do network engineering for a living. I've been doing it for about eight years, so I think I have some insight for you. First off, ebrandsberg's +5 moderated statement (#9567080) is a little bogus.
While the math on the hardware is straight, he fails to comprehend that the routing engines of Linux and FreeBSD are completely not designed for rapid routing and forwarding lookups. While there is some progress being made in this area, it is incredibly slow work. The Linux and FreeBSD IP stacks are not designed for packet forwarding and rapid cut-through switching; they're designed for dealing with an entirely separate problem, and the code is pretty ugly compared to the rest of the large body of network code. BSD has a leg up on Linux, but 2.6 is catching up fast in this regard.
I don't understand what you think you're not getting from Cisco. From an innovation perspective, Cisco has pretty much every feature in real-world networks deployed that people need, with some minor exceptions in the MPLS world. While Juniper beats them on lookup and engine performance, the Juniper backplane has some distance to go when coupled with large amounts of traffic. Your own description of your problem isn't sufficient data for me to really speak to your requirements, but I have to go on record here and say I think your statement about Cisco not able to provide unique, customized needs is a little off-kilter. I question what your unique and customized needs really are, because the reality of network engineering is you find a set of features, you find a box that meets your performance requirements, and you roll out. Cisco has a feature/performance mix for every network from A to FF, including yours.
If your sales team isn't working well, then find a different one. This is standard business practice, and not unique to Cisco.
Please do not take the advice of other trolls in this thread who suggest that they can recommend you a vendor without knowing intimate details of your application. They are snakeoil salesmen. People who suggest Juniper, Extreme, Riverstone, may all have good recommendations, and they may be sound for your application, but I wouldn't make that judgement call without being absolutely certain that they knew all your requirements. For example, I do over 5Gb/s outbound to the Internet on Foundry Networks gear, and while it works, I can't honestly say that i'm happy with it for the features that I need. We gave Juniper a shot and they didn't have the right cost-per-port/density that we needed, so we ended up heading in Cisco's direction. This decision took me about a month and a half in comparing all the options, and doing a feature matrix that was weighted towards what I needed.
This may all seem like stupidity or busywork to you, but I assure you it is not. Any network design requires this much attention, and your company will thank you for it. Do not try to do things cheaply - the PC router road is a worn one, mostly because people come back down the same path they took to get there and go off in another direction.
If you are insistent on using "open-source" using Zebra, GateD, or Click under FreeBSD, Linux, or something else, I would advise you to wait for some time unless your traffic needs are under a couple of megs a second.