Cisco 5500 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 5500) vs. Juniper MX Series

Cloud based solutions, these need the necessary bandwidth going from point A to point B. Automate as much as possible from a WAN Core edge standpoint, take away the always on maintaining of the routers/switches on the network. Automation is extremely important in today's world. The Cisco 5500 Series Network Convergence System would not be a very viable solution for a small company, especially from a budgetary standpoint.

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I think the Juniper MX series is a fantastic option for data center connectivity and places that aren't very high touch, but need good reliability and uptime. These switches are a bit more difficult to use day to day, but their reliability and robustness make them a great fit for data centers.

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• It is versatile due to the diversity in models and form factors.
• Low power consumption compared to similar models
• Mature operating system code allowing for quick production installation and configuration.

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• It's a robust platform, very resilient. It handles large traffic flows well.
• It's a flexible architecture, it can be configured with provider or enterprise options (or both!)
• It has an excellent versioning system, simple commit/confirm/rollback procedures!

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• Horizontal blade designs are rare these days because if the gear is shipped in a rack, the blade can bend. The NCS5500's blades are horizontal.
• Not a NCS5500 specific issue, but XR has a ways to go, but will continue to grow with customer input.

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• Storm Control needs to have a way to see what going on in the CLI in a more straight forward fashion
• They need a GUI interface much like the old Nortel Network equipment.
• Not the routers fault but support costs have increased.

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Working with Juniper switches can be a bit of a chore compared to other brands, like Cisco or HP. This makes me drop the rating for usability down to a 6, because for higher touch environments, I wouldn't recommend a Juniper. Outside of data center use cases, a Cisco switch would be a better option.

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Cisco support is always informative and reliable. Depending on the level of support you subscribe to, the techs and Cisco TAC are well versed in hardware and operating system of the NCS series routers. You can receive 24x7 support and either Next Business Day or 4-hour part replacement from Cisco if required.

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Ultimately other Arista and Juniper choices were tested but design and testing did not give much detail as to why these are better overall or in comparison. We are already using Cisco in this level of the topology so that was most likely the strongest reason and fit the application we are using it for.

We preferred Juniper over Cisco for our WAN/Internet routing needs for a number of reasons. First was the price, the Juniper offering was much more competitive than Cisco's. Secondly, was feature set, Juniper's implementation of routing protocols, routing tables, and forwarding options are better thought-out than Cisco's (not to mention Juniper's longstanding use of commit/confirm/rollback features, which Cisco has only started to use recently, and only on some of their products).

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• 100% uptime for 5 years.
• No successful intrusion attempts in 5 years.
• Very high throughput has allowed for constant and reliable connectivity.

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• Being dependable has allowed our network to stay running allowing for everyone to be productive.
• Cost of the routers was very reasonable allowing us to keep our budget under control.
• Support cost on our routers is not terribly high.
• We link our routers to Cisco and Aruba with no issue. Interoperable give us flexibility of choice

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