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If they want networking hardware, linux *ISN'T* the way to go.

Juniper, Cisco, others.... (I dunno anymore but there is I'm sure).

As you said yourself, you get what you pay for. If you buy crap, you'll get crap throughput.

Actually, that isn't true at all. Linux can compete toe to toe with Cisco, Juniper, Big Iron, and others. This is specifically why Vyatta has so much invested in it. Vyatta has come up with a Linux distro that is designed to replace this proprietary hardware. To boot, Vyatta has scored several major Fortune 500 players. Additionally, OpenBSD has routing facilities that are a force to be reckoned with. Several of my clients use Lenovo M71e's with OpenBSD as routers that I built. I replaced the traditional HD with an SSD and bought high-end intel networking boards. Contrary to "conventional" wisdom, these have been near perfectly reliable. They use BGP and IPSEC to interface with my Amazon VPC.

Mod parent up! Vyatta CLI is very much like the other big network vendors as far as configuration goes. The hardware is the choice, however they do actually provide appliances. Vyatta is excellent for both routing and firewall purposes. Above link points local, here is actual link: http://www.vyatta.com/solutions/physical/appliances

Hmm I could have sworn that I have seen several companies who are doing exactly that. Offering open source routing platforms to take on Cisco and other high end routers.

Vyatta http://www.vyatta.com/
XORP http://www.xorp.org/

Plus there was Alteon who was bought out by Nortel that was doing a lot of open source stuff. I worked with them before they got bought out. I also know of a few other companies around the same period who were open sourcing the software that ran on top of their hardware as well.

You might be surprised at how much stuff out there is open source because they are selling you the custom hardware (ASICs/whatever) not the software that runs on top of it.

See: their commercial site and their community (read: free!) site

I've been using it for the past few months. I must warn that it's not the most user friendly, but it has a lot of commercial backing. As long as you read the documentation, you'll be fine.

It runs on x86 hardware. I'm running it in a virtual machine running on an Ubuntu box, there's one gigabit NIC in it, but the VM has two virtual NICs. It works incredibly well.

The new version has support for wireless, including N, but I can't vouch for that since I haven't used it. If it's anything like the rest of their stuff, it works flawlessly.

One of my favorite parts about Vyatta is that all its configuration is stored in a single file. If you've put this file on a flash drive, you can boot the livecd and run right off of that if you like. Obviously, if you install extra software or configure things outside of the Vyatta shell, that doesn't go in the config file. Although I don't run off of the livecd, this convenient config file is an easy way to verify the integrity of the system. If you're worried you got hacked, just back up your config and do a clean install. All you have to do is look over the file to make sure everything looks right, and you're good to go.

I'm not fond of Vyatta's commercial aspects, but if you can live with the details listed here then the only thing you have between you and a brilliant setup is the manuals!

I was looking at DD-WRT for a while, but then decided against it because of all the controversy. I honestly don't remember what I didn't like about OpenWRT, but something kept me from trying that too. The big difference between almost everything that's been mentioned so far (DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato, etc...) and Vyatta is that while the former are mostly intended for SOHO users, Vyatta is intended as a Cisco competitor for big business. I actually like pouring hours into reading documentation so I can use "enterprise" stuff like Vyatta at home, but it's up to you to decide which way you want to go.

For the record: like many other posters above, I'm not affiliated with Vyatta in any way, I'm just completely startled by the fact that nobody's mentioned it so far. Does Vyatta have a big black mark that nobody's told me about, or is it just not as well known?

By the way: Vyatta sells their own hardware too, but it's pretty pricey. It starts at ~$800 and reaches up over $10K. Personally, I think it's way overpriced, but I suppose there are appropriate situations for such equipment.

See: their commercial site and their community (read: free!) site

I've been using it for the past few months. I must warn that it's not the most user friendly, but it has a lot of commercial backing. As long as you read the documentation, you'll be fine.

It runs on x86 hardware. I'm running it in a virtual machine running on an Ubuntu box, there's one gigabit NIC in it, but the VM has two virtual NICs. It works incredibly well.

The new version has support for wireless, including N, but I can't vouch for that since I haven't used it. If it's anything like the rest of their stuff, it works flawlessly.

One of my favorite parts about Vyatta is that all its configuration is stored in a single file. If you've put this file on a flash drive, you can boot the livecd and run right off of that if you like. Obviously, if you install extra software or configure things outside of the Vyatta shell, that doesn't go in the config file. Although I don't run off of the livecd, this convenient config file is an easy way to verify the integrity of the system. If you're worried you got hacked, just back up your config and do a clean install. All you have to do is look over the file to make sure everything looks right, and you're good to go.

I'm not fond of Vyatta's commercial aspects, but if you can live with the details listed here then the only thing you have between you and a brilliant setup is the manuals!

I was looking at DD-WRT for a while, but then decided against it because of all the controversy. I honestly don't remember what I didn't like about OpenWRT, but something kept me from trying that too. The big difference between almost everything that's been mentioned so far (DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato, etc...) and Vyatta is that while the former are mostly intended for SOHO users, Vyatta is intended as a Cisco competitor for big business. I actually like pouring hours into reading documentation so I can use "enterprise" stuff like Vyatta at home, but it's up to you to decide which way you want to go.

For the record: like many other posters above, I'm not affiliated with Vyatta in any way, I'm just completely startled by the fact that nobody's mentioned it so far. Does Vyatta have a big black mark that nobody's told me about, or is it just not as well known?

By the way: Vyatta sells their own hardware too, but it's pretty pricey. It starts at ~$800 and reaches up over $10K. Personally, I think it's way overpriced, but I suppose there are appropriate situations for such equipment.

Vyata builds open source routing. http://www.vyatta.com/products/software_subscriptions.php

http://www.vyatta.com/about/press_releases.php?id=78

20Gbps and 3,000,000 pps on commodity hardware with CPU to spare.

The parent is clearly unaware of interrupt coalescing or PCI-E.

http://www.vyatta.com/

http://www.vyatta.com/

So AirControl "doesn't play well with other network monitoring software" (which one, and why?), and MikroTik "isn't built for what [you] need" (what's that?) - other than that, you don't give us any idea what you really expect. What are your requirements? Suggestions out of the blue: OpenWRT with quagga/zebra, hostapd, radius, olsrd, b.a.t.m.a.n. etc. etc, or you might want to have a look at Vyatta (no affiliation).

Vyatta seem to think Linux is "good enough"

http://www.vyatta.com/

Their white papers have some interesting figures for the pro-Cisco crowd to consider.

Of course it's with 64-byte packets: that's the common lingo of network hardware manufacturers. You can find similar throughput measurements on every piece of Cisco or Juniper equipment. Anyone that quotes bandwidth throughput in passing will use the 64-byte figure, since it's always the highest one.

Um. No. It's not the highest one. It's typically the lowest one. As I said before, small packets kill PC based routers.

Vyatt'a own paper shows it.

Who cares particularly if it is legal or not. What you SHOULD be worrying about is how easy would it be for such a company to take a handsome bribe to allow others to hijack your connection via their firmware/router?

Vyatta anyone? http://www.vyatta.com/

I think it's about time for some serious F/OSS hardware and firmware to replace what was once thought safe and sound from hacking and such.

Your joke is exactly why I'm starting to play with Vyatta http://www.vyatta.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyatta to get away from the alphabet soup of groups that want to know what happens inside my home without my knowledge. Performance is pretty good for small office/home networks and leaves you quite a few options if playing with computers is your hobby.

Wow, I haven't seen a single comment in this entire discussion that gets it. Cisco's core competency is being commoditized by companies like Vyatta. The only thing Cisco really has going for them going forward is momentum and brand loyalty. There's no way in hell they will maintain their lead on the functionality or performance front unless they appeal to the broad developer community using Linux. They will never compete on price, but this move will at least help them keep the wolves at bay a little bit longer.

Our biggest tech companies, like Microsoft and Cisco, were successful because they undercut the big guys. 80% of the features for 20% of the price. No one should be shocked to see history repeat itself.

...according to Vyatta 1.5GHz CPU can fill 45% of 100Mbits/s link assuming packet size 64 bytes. It means that likely performance of this USB firewall is well under 20Mbits/s

Support contracts can be bought - that seems to be the point of Vyatta:
http://www.vyatta.com/products/plans.php And, according to the original article (which you obviously did not read) the support is pretty good so far:
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalCon tent/0,289142,sid39_gci1218088,00.html

Read the content instead of just pushing flamebait y0u n00b :)

It sure looks like Vyatta offers support products for the OSS router:
http://www.vyatta.com/products/

That seems to separate them from other OSS projects that don't have commercial support options. And, the source article seems to state the support (so far) is pretty good:
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalCon tent/0,289142,sid39_gci1218088,00.html

Perhaps a link to the actual product would be in order?
Vyatta Open Flexible Router

Imagestream - HA! Now, there is a joke!

A company run from the basement of one of their mother's houses? I've been there and these guys are not worth your time. Check out their corporate headquarters location and tell me this is for real: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=7900+8th+R d,+Plymouth,+IN+46563&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=41.36257 3,-86.213365&spn=0.017941,0.042357

Also, taking open source and then closing it and turning it into a prorietary router != OSS!

For Vyatta, it looks like they have a real company, a real location, a real management team and the code is available here: http://www.vyatta.com/twiki/bin/view/Community/Sou rceCodeAccess

For a midrange router with a few FE ports I might give them a shot.

http://www.vyatta.com/twiki/bin/view/Community/Sou rceCodeAccess