What's the best cost effective way to do bgp? What kind of hardware do I use? I want to bgp Cogent with Yipes and want to do it for 3k or less. I guess I will have to use Ebay for this but what series Cisco equipment and how?

You should be able to find a Cisco 7204/7206 NPE200 for about $3000 on Ebay.
Should come with 1 Fast Ethernet Port, and you'll need another for your 2nd 100mbps provider. Then you will need another port for the backhaul to your NOC, if you need such...

Sean R.
BurstNET

You will also need to confirm with your providers that they will route and advertise each others address blocks unless you have your own - you will need to own at least a /20 - but preferrably a /19 or bigger. /19 is the smallest block that is usually globally advertisable and is not blocked or dropped by other networks. If the providers will not cooperate - you will not be able to do bgp - you will be able only to route traffic out the connection that you have addresses for. I guess you could put half servers on one providers addresses and half on hte other to hedge your bets. We have seen this happen with several providers on this forum who thought they had bgp - or said they did - but did not - just ask a lot of question and be careful - if you can not get these things done - dont waste your $$ on the router - buy a cisco 2924 off ebay for use with cogent.

Cisco 7204/7206 NPE200 I don't think that will work. To load up full BGP tables, you will need at least 256 MB of RAM and the 7204/6 NPE200 can only handle 128 if I am not mistaken.

Hi,

Might want to check out the Rapier "i" series, such as the 24i and 48i - they're inexpensive and can be setup to do BGP routing:

http://www.alliedtelesyn.com/allied/products/subcategories.asp?rem=1&category=20&country=2&lang=en&showproductsfor=90#90

Originally posted by MystiX
Hi,

Might want to check out the Rapier "i" series, such as the 24i and 48i - they're inexpensive and can be setup to do BGP routing:

http://www.alliedtelesyn.com/allied/products/subcategories.asp?rem=1&category=20&country=2&lang=en&showproductsfor=90#90

Have you had experience with them yourself? Any problems setting them up?

Originally posted by sailor
You will also need to confirm with your providers that they will route and advertise each others address blocks unless you have your own - you will need to own at least a /20 - but preferrably a /19 or bigger. /19 is the smallest block that is usually globally advertisable and is not blocked or dropped by other networks. If the providers will not cooperate - you will not be able to do bgp - you will be able only to route traffic out the connection that you have addresses for. I guess you could put half servers on one providers addresses and half on hte other to hedge your bets. We have seen this happen with several providers on this forum who thought they had bgp - or said they did - but did not - just ask a lot of question and be careful - if you can not get these things done - dont waste your $$ on the router - buy a cisco 2924 off ebay for use with cogent.


I already have a Extreme Networks Summit 48 switch. Am I suppose to combine the two?

Originally posted by ClusterMania
Have you had experience with them yourself? Any problems setting them up?

Yes, we are using them in our Los Angeles data center. Although I did not set anything up or do any configuration personally, I do know that the BGP ability was an add-on software package which had to be purchased at an additional cost. It was still far cheaper than Cisco or Summit's comparible solution, however, and seems to provide comparible performance and features.

Originally posted by MystiX


Yes, we are using them in our Los Angeles data center. Although I did not set anything up or do any configuration personally, I do know that the BGP ability was an add-on software package which had to be purchased at an additional cost. It was still far cheaper than Cisco or Summit's comparible solution, however, and seems to provide comparible performance and features.

http://www.pagecomputers.com/cgi-bin/page/S0440685.html

How much to upgrade to the i version?

Originally posted by sailor
You will also need to confirm with your providers that they will route and advertise each others address blocks unless you have your own - you will need to own at least a /20 - but preferrably a /19 or bigger. /19 is the smallest block that is usually globally advertisable and is not blocked or dropped by other networks. If the providers will not cooperate - you will not be able to do bgp - you will be able only to route traffic out the connection that you have addresses for. I guess you could put half servers on one providers addresses and half on hte other to hedge your bets. We have seen this happen with several providers on this forum who thought they had bgp - or said they did - but did not - just ask a lot of question and be careful - if you can not get these things done - dont waste your $$ on the router - buy a cisco 2924 off ebay for use with cogent.

This is not entirely true - you don't have to have your own /19 or /20 - most providers allow users to advertise their IP space on the users own ASN. I know for a fact that both Cogent and Yipes will cooperate in getting you setup, as long as you get your own ASN from ARIN, which is easy and painless. As a side note, Cogent is quite painful with assigning IP addresses, though, so you might be better off requesting the addresses from Yipes.

ClusterMania: Let me know what you end up using and how it works out; I may have a similar opportunity soon.

BGP can be very trick to set-up and you can actually really mess up your routing if you don't set it up properly. I would suggest that you hire a Network Consultant to help you out.

My 2 cents :)

I understand that BGP is not easy to configure. I get all my work done by consultants.

What do they recommend?

Originally posted by Webjunkie


This is not entirely true - you don't have to have your own /19 or /20 - most providers allow users to advertise their IP space on the users own ASN. I know for a fact that both Cogent and Yipes will cooperate in getting you setup, as long as you get your own ASN from ARIN, which is easy and painless. As a side note, Cogent is quite painful with assigning IP addresses, though, so you might be better off requesting the addresses from Yipes.

ClusterMania: Let me know what you end up using and how it works out; I may have a similar opportunity soon.

The statement I made is true- the point is that - yes you can route smaller blocks than that - but some other networks (Sprint I have heard) will not accept and route smaller than a /19. You run the risk of your clinets traffic not being able to get somewhere. The bigger the block you have - the more places you can go. But yes- you can route smaller blocks - just dont be suprised if yo ucan not get certain places.

yea but who really uses sprint anymore :) jjk

my 2 cents, your cheapest solution is a cisco 7206 i am quite sure you can go up to 512mb ram in them or at least 256mb ram.

Of course if your familiar with the summit interface, then i would advice you design your whole network around extreme equipment, besides extreme switches are rated faster then about anything out there, and alot more secure then cisco equipment. If your wanting to advertise full routing youll need a minimum of a blackdiamond extreme switch model number 6808 it comes with full layer 3 and will run used on ebay anywhere from 10k - 20k on ebay used with the minimum modules and power supplys. If you just want to use bgp as a failover type of deal where if your main provider goes down the other one picks up you can advertise partial routes and can get buy with any of the summitt switches with the I chipset. Extreme just realeased a 48si which integrates 48 ports, 2 gige ports, and the I chipset for 4k-5k in a 1u chassis its a awesome little thing, does load balancing and the works. But if you dont get a blackdiamond switch youll have to buy a full layer 3 license to use bgp for any of the summitt products and that runs around 2k.

Hope that helps

On a side note i notices someone recommended a somewhat non name brand layer 3 switch I would stay far away from these, their routing and usage of bgp will pail in comparison to one of the big boys who traditionally use their layer 3 devices for edge of network application.

No, the NPE-200 can only handle 128 MB RAM, the NPE-225/NPE-300 can handle 256 MB and the NPE-400/NSE-1 can handle 512 MB.

Why is ram so expensive? Why can't they make routers that just use normal registered ram that servers take. Then you can load it with gigs of ram. =P Ram for routers are much faster or is it their little way of making more off you?

It's not, unless you buy Cisco :)

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?Mfr+Productline=Cisco+Routers&model=7200+Series+Router+NPE-225&submit=Go

128MB - $47.69

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2023370783

Is this what you guys are talking about? I am totally in the dark when it comes to cisco equipment. So many modules and lots of variety. (Makes this confusing) Extreme Networks equipment looks more simple. Maybe I should get a summit 24i or 48i and sell my summit48 switch.

If your going to buy a summit I new, then get the summit48si its alot better, only 1u, and cheaper then a 48i new. Of course these just came out so if your buying used youll have to go with the 48i

Originally posted by cbaker17
If your going to buy a summit I new, then get the summit48si its alot better, only 1u, and cheaper then a 48i new. Of course these just came out so if your buying used youll have to go with the 48i

Too bad you can't just upgrade your summit 48 to a summit 48Si