From: Roberto Giana (groupstudy@giana.ch)
Date: Fri Aug 05 2005 - 11:15:15 GMT-3
I think Ux boxes as routers may be an option in an environment where you
only need ethernet. As soon it comes to something else, like wan
interfaces, they are no competition anymore. Have you ever tried to find
a serial sync interface for PC hardware? HSSI? Ever seen the price of an
ATM interface for PC hardware? Got the drivers for your Ux? Maybe you
can use Ux boxes in the campus and "Ciscos" in the WAN. But I would like
to have just one cli, also meaning just one vendor which has to garantee
the interoperability.
Also interface density is a point. Has anybody ever seen a PC with 48
ethernet interfaces? :-)
Unfortunately the Cat3550 has been set to EOS. But if I needed ethernet
routing in a small environment I would have used a Cat3550 instead of a
Cat2950, getting L3 support for additional 500$ to the regular L2 switch.
Also performance is an other point. Nowadays PC hardware can not compete
with L3 switches, which do L3 in hardware. Also. As it comes to
performance do never ever forget that switching performance (bits per
second) is not the same as routing performance (packets per second).
Best example comes from Cisco itself. Cat 6500 with Sup720 can do up to
720 Gbps switching and up to 400 Mpps routing performance, but only if
you use line cards with dCEF720 and DFC3 support, which does routing on
the linecard itself. Otherwise you will never be able to get over 30
Mpps on the complete box, no matter how fast you can switch!
Table 3 for any details:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/hw/switches/ps708/products_qanda_item09186a0080159963.shtml
What about user authentication and authorization for managemnet? How
would you realise this on a Ux box? You could use PAM-RADIUS for
authentication. But as it comes to authorization you would probably need
NIS(+)/YP. Building a NIS domain just for router management? :-) I would
prefer my "aaa new-model" instead of fighting with user and group rights
insight my Ux router configuration.
What about MPLS support? Nowadays customers are deploying MPLS even in a
campus envrionment. So traffic can be completly sepparated at L3. No mix
of VoIP and data streams / routing updates at no time.
What about multicast support?
Just some thoughts before weekend...
Regards
Roberto
Sheahan, John wrote:
>Recently there have been several articles in the recent IT magazines and
>online talking about how open source routers and firewalls are the
>future.
>
>
>
>I have had several arguments with unix geeks about why we shouldn't use
>these over Cisco devices in production scenarios.
>
>
>
>There is apparently a growing project called XORP that is developing
>open source code which can currently route OSPF and BGP on a PC.
>
>
>
>I am trying to develop a list of good reasons to help diffuse this line
>of thinking. I know the router code isn't prime time yet but apparently
>the firewall code for Linux is.
>
>
>
>Can anyone help me come up with some good reasons why not to use the
>open source firewall on Linux over a Pix or Checkpoint firewall?
>
>
>
>Thanks
>
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