Conference netcad::hub_mgnt

2228.0. "Cisco vs. RouteAbout 90EW. Info needed." by TROFS::WEBSTER (NIS, London, Canada) Thu Apr 27 1995 17:20

I'm looking for some competitive info against Cisco, but have been unable
to find what I'm looking for.

I'm up against some stiff competition from a reseller/service provider (Bell
Advanced Communications (BAC)) here in Canada). They are going into a city 
school board and proposing the Cisco 2505 & 2507 (for the elementary schools) 
and 2514s with Synoptics 2800 series hubs (in the high shools). These 40 (or 
so) schools will be connected by a Bell supplied Frame Relay network with their
Internet access via the School board's head office, where a Cisco 4000 will 
be installed.

Our proposal is to supply the DECrepeater 90TS/new DECrepeater 90T-16 with
RouteAbout 90EWs (elementary) and DEChub 900s with DECrepeater 900TMs and
DECbridge 90 with RouteAbout 90EW at high schools (we do not have a low cost
2 LAN port router!!!!). The board office would have to have 3 RouteAbout 90EWs
to support the number of VCs required (IP, IPX, Appletalk & LAT required) (64
VCs per 90EW....40 sites x 4 protocols (VCs) per DLCI = 160 VCs..if I'm 
calculating correctly).

The customer is favouring the Bell solution because "All I have to do is call
one # if I have a problem with the net...no finger pointing as to whether the
problem is the router of the FR net!".

I need some facts about the Cisco product's performance. I've checked Cisco's
home page, their literature that I have, various notes files, and tried to 
FTP into Scott Bradner's test reports (no response from hsdndev.harvard.edu).
Nothing talks about Packets per second, performance over frame relay, etc...
Info I gathered from the latest Net Academy stated the EW would do about
4000 pps. How about some more info on this!

Bell is providing the customer with 128Kbps FR access at all sites. Sources
have also informed me that Bell may also provide a T1 speed FR link to local
ONET (Ontario government NETwork) Internet connection (not sure what this is 
about). Bell, out of the kindness of their heart, is trying to get all the 
local education facilities (public and catholic school systems, local college 
and local university) to join into this FR net and Bell will place no CIR on 
the circuits. This looks very tempting to the educators. (Not sure if Bell is 
walking on thin ground on this one. It may be illegal in Canada for them to 
bundle telecommunications services (Frame Relay) with products (Cisco/Bay), 
from the BAC group, as these are 2 seperate arms of BCE Limited). 

The only strong point I have as that we have a better service org. and that
we can manage the whole thing from HUBwatch (ie...see the router's in the
hub vs. seperate icon on HP's OPENview for Synoptics box and Cisco router/
integrated repeater/router (I'm not sure if there is even a management 
product for this box...will CiscoWorks run under HP OPENview (windows)?).

Any help will be appreciated. Need info ASAP.

	-Larry
	DTN 624-4249

Forgot to mention that the customer currently has both DEC and Bell provided
solutions.

One elementary school has a Synoptics 3000 and IGS+ installed and is linked
back to the board office where another IGS+ is installed. Bell provided
HP OPENview and the Latticnet (or whatever the product name is) to manage
the net. This install is several years old.

Another Adult school has a DEChub 90 with repeaters and servers installed
and is linked back with a DECbrouter 90 to DECNIS 600 configuration.

The adminstration uses MACs and the academic side uses PCs & MACs with Novell
servers.

The customer is a bit upset that our DECNIS will not do IPX and Appletalk
across the WAN links, as this is possible with the IGS+s. The DECNIS also
has 3 L602 LAN cards to segment the building LANs. Appletalk and IPX have
no problem here.

We have proposed to replace the DECNIS with the RouteAbout 90EWs.

	-Larry