Best WAN Adaper?

[John Brahy]

On http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html#hardware it lists three WAN Adapters,
does anyone have any suggestions on one over the other?


   - Accoom Networks Artery T1/E1 WAN interfaces
(art)
   (G)
   - SBE (formerly Lan Media Corporation) SSI (T1)/HSSI/DS1/DS3 WAN
   interfaces
(lmc)
   (G)
   - Sangoma Technologies AFT T1/E1 WAN interfaces
(san)
   (G)

Thanks,

John

Re: Best WAN Adaper?

[Daniel Ouellet]

John Brahy wrote:

On http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html#hardware it lists three WAN Adapters,
does anyone have any suggestions on one over the other?


   - Accoom Networks Artery T1/E1 WAN interfaces
(art)
   (G)
   - SBE (formerly Lan Media Corporation) SSI (T1)/HSSI/DS1/DS3 WAN
   interfaces
(lmc)
   (G)
   - Sangoma Technologies AFT T1/E1 WAN interfaces
(san)
   (G)


I don't know about the DS3 one as I am still looking for that myself, 
but if you are looking for the T1, I sure would strongly recommend to go 
with the "Accoom Networks Artery". I order one from Win and the process 
couldn't be simpler so far! Plus what's the chance of it having problem. 
The hardware is design by OpenBSD guys and the driver is written by 
OpenBSD guys as well. Claudio did the driver for it!


So, what could be wrong with it I asked!

Plus, just think about it for well may be two seconds max, that's 
one way to also give back to the project, or at a minimum some guys from 
the project!


So, my answer is simple. Why even asked the question to start with, as 
long as you are looking for T1/E1 obviously!


If you are looking for DS3, then you are just like me, still trying to 
figure out witch one to use. I wish OpenBSD had one as well. Look to me 
with all the routing protocol design and in the system now, we only need 
good hardware to go with it and then Cisco and Juniper will have a nice 
run for their money.


Hope this help you some.

As for the DS3, if you get an answer on that one, please share with us!

Daniel

Re: Best WAN Adaper?

[Toni Mueller]

Hello,

On Sat, 15.04.2006 at 16:22:31 -0400, Daniel Ouellet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I don't know about the DS3 one as I am still looking for that myself, 
> ...
> As for the DS3, if you get an answer on that one, please share with us!

these seem to have mostly vanished from the planet. The only ones which
were supported at some time in the past, and which I'm aware of, are
SBE's, but they don't give any guarantees. Other cards which might be
good could be those from ImageStream, but they don't support OpenBSD,
nor do they offer reasonable docs (last I looked).

Anyway, if someone of you comes across good E3 cards, please drop me a
note.  Otherwise, try to persuade your carrier to give you Ethernet.


Best,
--Toni++

Re: Best WAN Adaper?

[tony sarendal]

On 19/04/06, Toni Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> On Sat, 15.04.2006 at 16:22:31 -0400, Daniel Ouellet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > I don't know about the DS3 one as I am still looking for that myself,
> > ...
> > As for the DS3, if you get an answer on that one, please share with us!
>
> these seem to have mostly vanished from the planet. The only ones which
> were supported at some time in the past, and which I'm aware of, are
> SBE's, but they don't give any guarantees. Other cards which might be
> good could be those from ImageStream, but they don't support OpenBSD,
> nor do they offer reasonable docs (last I looked).
>
> Anyway, if someone of you comes across good E3 cards, please drop me a
> note.  Otherwise, try to persuade your carrier to give you Ethernet.



What about using Ethernet to T3/E3 converters instead ?
That way you don't need funky cards in the openbsd box.

I haven't had a closer look at the different vendors of those as we used
Lucent and Nortel Ethernet over SDH equipment (of varying quality) at the
telco I used to work at, but there are man companies out there selling
this stuff. If you can find something which can run as a repeater go for
that.

/Tony

--
Tony Sarendal - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IP/Unix
   -= The scorpion replied,
   "I couldn't help it, it's my nature" =-

Re: Best WAN Adaper?

[Toni Mueller]

Hello,

On Wed, 19.04.2006 at 12:57:16 +0100, tony sarendal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 19/04/06, Toni Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Anyway, if someone of you comes across good E3 cards, please drop me a
> > note.  Otherwise, try to persuade your carrier to give you Ethernet.
> 
> What about using Ethernet to T3/E3 converters instead ?
> That way you don't need funky cards in the openbsd box.

unfortunately, there appears to be no standard line encoding for E3
lines, so if you want to have E3-Ethernet converters, you must use them
in pairs, on both ends of the line. This rules out having eg your E3
terminating somewhere inside an STM1/4/... trunk on the other side, but
many carriers only offer this kind of setup. So you're almost
guaranteed to have a non-working line if they have, say, a Cisco 12000
on their end where your line terminates inside a trunk, and you have
the simple fiber with only that one E3 incorporated. I've been told
that the situation improves quite a bit when you have STM1 instead:
There, a standard exists, but it doesn't appear to be widely tested if
it actually works.


Best,
--Toni++

Re: Best WAN Adaper?

[tony sarendal]

On 21/04/06, Toni Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> On Wed, 19.04.2006 at 12:57:16 +0100, tony sarendal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > On 19/04/06, Toni Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Anyway, if someone of you comes across good E3 cards, please drop me a
> > > note.  Otherwise, try to persuade your carrier to give you Ethernet.
> >
> > What about using Ethernet to T3/E3 converters instead ?
> > That way you don't need funky cards in the openbsd box.
>
> unfortunately, there appears to be no standard line encoding for E3
> lines, so if you want to have E3-Ethernet converters, you must use them
> in pairs, on both ends of the line. This rules out having eg your E3
> terminating somewhere inside an STM1/4/... trunk on the other side, but
> many carriers only offer this kind of setup. So you're almost
> guaranteed to have a non-working line if they have, say, a Cisco 12000
> on their end where your line terminates inside a trunk, and you have
> the simple fiber with only that one E3 incorporated. I've been told
> that the situation improves quite a bit when you have STM1 instead:
> There, a standard exists, but it doesn't appear to be widely tested if
> it actually works.


Very true, my mindset was limited to circuits where you run both ends
as that was what I was working on.

/Tony

--
Tony Sarendal - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IP/Unix
   -= The scorpion replied,
   "I couldn't help it, it's my nature" =-

Re: Best WAN Adaper?

[Adam D. Morley]

On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 10:36:27AM +0200, Toni Mueller wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Wed, 19.04.2006 at 12:57:16 +0100, tony sarendal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On 19/04/06, Toni Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Anyway, if someone of you comes across good E3 cards, please drop me a
> > > note.  Otherwise, try to persuade your carrier to give you Ethernet.
> > 
> > What about using Ethernet to T3/E3 converters instead ?
> > That way you don't need funky cards in the openbsd box.
> 
> unfortunately, there appears to be no standard line encoding for E3
> lines, so if you want to have E3-Ethernet converters, you must use them
> in pairs, on both ends of the line. This rules out having eg your E3
> terminating somewhere inside an STM1/4/... trunk on the other side, but
> many carriers only offer this kind of setup. So you're almost
> guaranteed to have a non-working line if they have, say, a Cisco 12000
> on their end where your line terminates inside a trunk, and you have
> the simple fiber with only that one E3 incorporated. I've been told
> that the situation improves quite a bit when you have STM1 instead:
> There, a standard exists, but it doesn't appear to be widely tested if
> it actually works.

FWIW: if you're in Qwest-land, you can now get up to 20mbps delivered as
copper ethernet.  They use a bucket of bonded pairs to do it, but it can
supposedly be done.  I looked at it a while ago, but it was somewhat
pricey when I only needed 3mbps.  ;-)

Anything higher than 20mbps seems to require fibers.

-- 
adam