Ascend Archive
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Re: (ASCEND) Virtual IP routing / IP Navigator
[a quick note, I'm noted for _hating_ cisco this message may confuse
you but in the past few weeks I've come round to Ciscos hardware it
is eons ahead of Ascend, as is their customer support and engineering teams
any one in the UK Internet would be amazed if they heard that I was using
Cisco equipment]. At the last LINX meeting several people that I used
to see posting to this list have given up on Ascend and gone down
the Cisco route.
> If progress in routers is unconventional, then yes.
Its far from progress. And it most certainly wasn't invented by Ascend.
> Route caching is only for "weak" or "legacy" routers that cannot hold the
> entire route table on a media card. Like a Cisco router. :)
Well Matt, Cisco's implementation actually works, We have been testing
the new PA-A3 ATM card from Cisco with the same configuration that
we have on our GRF-400 and the Cisco doesn't drop packets, the GRF however
does, this is because the ATM card is badly flawed and cannot deal with
a busy PVC. So what do your people recommend to us? Why don't you try
IP navigator? I reply,
"uhh, so you sold me something that doesn't meet its specifcation?",
and the answer I get is yes.
the latest we've had is that random packets are routed out the wrong
interface, and that the latest released code is _totally_ useless,
you managed to break AS_PATH matching [so 8220 701 is parsed as
8220701!]. Oh No E1 card and no DS-3 card and your stuck for
completing your network with one vendor.
>
> The GRF and IP Navigator can hold the entire Internet IP forwarding table
> locally on each media card. This means they can look up any route in about
> 1 microsecond. But yes, the total number of routes is limited by memory.
> However we have more than enough for our customer needs.
yah, but you don't have enough bandwidth between the cards so that
the table on a router running OSPF and BGP4 with say 6 peers can't
sync all the cards properly and you get packets bouncing around inside the
router. Joy!
> It seems to work very well, even at high speeds like OC-48/STM-16. FYI, the
> IP Navigator OSPF was designed and implemented primarily by John Moy who
> also invented OSPF.
Shame he sold out to you lot. Our CBX-500 is playing up and seems
to have earned its shiny Ascend logo. "Unreliably and poorly managed".
The GRF is a pile of steaming shit, someone should kill it off soon.
I used to sing the praises of this box, but recently I've found that
it just isn't up to the job [none of our links peak at more than 10Mb/s].
The poor folk at Netstar must be turning in their grave.
Ascend used to be a new and innovative company not they are just a "me too"
and they can't even get the things that they used to excell at right any
more. the recent MAX software release is a classic example. [try ciscos
dialup servers they are excellent]. Oops sorry gotto go, our Cisco
engineer is returning my call [something nobody at Ascend seems to do].
I am making a detailed report of the past 6 months of dealing with Ascend
and I can quite honestly say that I've never been treated so terribly in
all my days.
Regards,
Neil.
--
Neil J. McRae. Alive and Kicking. Domino: In the glow of the night.
neil@DOMINO.ORG NetBSD/sparc: 100% SpF (Solaris protection Factor)
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