Service Provider Networks / Internet Routing / View from the Edge:

Gibson is here, on a pallet

Carriers will have to forklift new Juniper router into networks/p>

By Jim Duffy
The Edge, 04/26/02

The wait is over: Juniper's Gibson has arrived.

The first impression of the new Internet core router is that it appears to be a forklift upgrade from Juniper's current high-end, the M160. Gibson, which will carry the brand name T640, is a different architecture than the M160 and uses a whole new set of Internet Processor ASICs optimized for high-density 10G bit/sec - the T-series chipset, as Juniper calls it.

Thus, 10G bit/sec OC-192c interface modules from the M160 will not be forward-compatible to the new T640, a situation that may cause some consternation among service providers considering the new box.

"There is a customer transition risk due to a lack of a 'graceful' upgrade to the T640 for existing M160 customers," UBS Warburg analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos states in a recent report on Gibson. "The T640 will be a brand-new chassis and will have brand-new OC-192c line cards. While all of this should not be surprising to customers, it could cause some of the larger carriers some concerns given the current capex crunch. This could cause some customers to delay adopting this product in trying to possibly negotiate better financial terms to compensate for the lack of compatibility on the OC-192c line cards."

(Maybe that's why WorldCom has not yet deployed the T640 after beta testing it; NTT/Verio and France Telecom have, however...)

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Juniper shrugged off the matter. Kevin Dillon, director of portfolio marketing for Juniper says carriers expect some features to "fall through the cracks" when a significant upgrade emerges.

Still, with a system "optimized for 10G bit/sec" like the T640 is touted to be, 10G bit/sec interfaces already in use seem to be a large piece to let fall through the cracks. Perhaps it shows just how non-10G bit/sec-optimized the M160 is.

Indeed, one feature that will not carry over from the M160 into the T640 is the 10G bit/sec packet reordering snafu that cropped up under certain conditions in the M160. The new T-series ASICs do not reorder packets, Dillon says, so the issue is moot.

Juniper said as much when the reordering situation was present in the M160, claiming it was more an issue for us in the media than for Juniper's customers. Perhaps... but if it was such a nonissue for Juniper's customers, why did Juniper's 10G bit/sec market share slip so much after Cisco unveiled its OC-192c-capable 12400 series?

Maybe the T640 will win some of it back. It certainly has a density advantage over Cisco and Avici now - 32 OC-192s per eight-slot, half-rack chassis, vs. 16 for Cisco and 20 for Avici. And with that much density, one could argue that Juniper is delivering OC-768 - 40G bit/sec slots - now.

Cisco is expected to counter soon. The company's rumored "HFR" project is expected to yield 16 40G bit/sec slots in a half-rack chassis, doubling the T640.

Cisco's terabit scale story is still a mystery, however. Three years ago, the company announced 256x256 switch interconnect for scaling multiple 12400 series routers to 5 terabit/sec, but Cisco has been deafeningly silent since.

Meanwhile, Juniper claims it can demonstrate terabit scale by connecting eight T640s together via its TX Internet Switching Node matrix. No one is deploying TX currently, however, and Juniper will not say when this "engineering exercise" will ship.