MPLS for my Company - ISP offers managed router - yay or nay?

[Joshua Engels]

Hey guys,

I wanted to get some opinions on the topic above.  We are purchasing MPLS services from a large ISP and they offer a managed router option.  I will also have a Cisco ISR 2900 at each site running SRST for my voice system.  I have some experience with BGP and am not scared at all to support it if need be.  That said, I am currently looking at pros and cons of going with a managed router from this company vs managing my own.  Actually, I will manage my own regardless and would just plug it into the managed router.  My router is perfectly capable of handling the BGP protocol but I am hoping that I can get some opinions from all of you.  Thanks in advance!

Pros/Cons of Managed and Unmanaged MPLS router.

[vmiller]

It depends..... (typical engineering response)

For stub type environments (branch offices) most of the time you don't have that much to do, until you need

a massive change. If you are light on staff, it makes for many long weekends.

On the other hand, SLA's become your hammer if you let them mangage the devices. It can work, and removes another burden from the staff.

i have done both, and with a good contract and a good relationship with the provider, I generally prefer letting them manage the device.

[Leo Laohoo]

I agree.  It all boils down to your SLA and contract.  In Australia, for example, our ISP's mentality is always it's-the-customer's-fault.  So we have to furnish our ISP undeniable proof that the network issue between Points A and Points B are is caused by our equipment and maybe, just maybe, they might get off their proverbial backside and scratch it.

[Richard Burts]

I agree with my colleagues that there are many customers where having the managed router from the provider is a real advantage. Especially in customers where the experience level is not so high it is especially good to have someone manage the Internet router who knows what they are doing and will not make many mistakes.

On the other hand when you contract for MPLS you lose a lot of visibility into what is happening between your HQ and your remote sites. With a managed router you will know even less of what is happening in the outside network. Joshua sounds to me like someone who likes to be the master of his own destiny. And if he will be running his own router for SRST then I think that a managed router for MPLS is just one more router hop just to get into MPLS. What are the operational advantages of that?

HTH

Rick

[blau grana]

Hello All,

@vmiller

Completly agree.

@leolaohoo

"always it's-the-customer's-fault" -> I think this apply all around the world, not only in Australia.

@Richard

my opinion, there are no operational advantages.

@Joshua

Even if you could manage that router, in fact you can not  influence many things because ISP will not accept your changes without  agreement.

I think best solution for you would be to not manage router (leave these problems for ISP). And ask ISP to configure access for you on this router, but just for verification (show commands) -> "read-only access", so in case of some failure you can check router and find out what is a problem.

Best Regards

Please rate all helpful posts and close solved questions

[milan.kulik · Accepted solution]

Hi Richard,

there are some operational advantages:

If the router fails, the provider has to fix/replace it in a time given by the contract SLA.

And it's also his responsibility to configure the CE router correctly to comply with the PE router configuration and the provider standards.

There is a clear demarcation line of responsibility: the provider is responsible for any trouble up to the CE router LAN port.

On the other hand, it's important for the customer to get an efficient read-only access to the routers - some providers don't like to let the customers to see the running config, e.g., and provide only a restricted set of CLI commands to the customer.

And last but not least:

The contract should cover how much would the customer pay for configuration changes on the CE routers managed by the provider. Some providers do the changes for free, some require payment per a config change.

But it's more about the contract conditions than technical aspects.

Best regards,

Milan

[Joshua Engels]

Well guys, you have all made great points and I appreciate the information.  It vailidates many things and many perspectives.  So basically here is what we have decided to do after speaking with the provider:

1. At our Central Office, due to the current equipment and confidence in our handoff (A clear DMARC that can be tested by our provider) we will go unmanaged.  This will give us a savings of $200 per month on that connection just to have an extra hop.  Our provider feels confident with this approach even though they wanted the sale of the managed router.

2. At our remote sites that become gray where failure cannot be easily and quickly resolved due to a gray area of Demarcation...especially in the event we used our router as the DMARC, we will go managed.  That way SLA's are not on us in any way.

Thanks so much for all of your input!