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Router Wars
Chris Holland writes "On the heels of Juniper Networks' recent release of its TX Matrix Platform, Om Malik is giving an interesting overview of current and upcoming battles between protagonists of the Router Game, armed with their Terabit toys."
Did anyone else think Linksys Routers, hehehehehe *passes out on the couch*
I'm pretty sure that summary says something meaningful, but heck if I can figure out what it is.
The sound...of 2 teeeeeerrrrrrraaabits...of raw poowweerr.
Watch the Juniper Junker take on the Cisco Crusher this SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY.
Kids's tickets are just five buuuuux!
Please help metamoderate.
There's the Cisco packet game. The game that not only confused me about who it was being marketed toward. But also drove me nuts about its gig with Port au Prince and whatever the rest of the crap on it was. I'm no expert on Haiti, but I don't think stereotyping everyone living in Port au Prince as impoverished schmos who get their water from 5 hours away per day. The game's simply creepy. Peter Packet
if that's not redundant.
c _id=63 958&site=lightreadingm /document.asp?doc_id=63 916&site=lightreadingm /document.asp?site=test ing&doc_id=63606
This is a large battle, but not one that is won or lost over a few months and not one that is won by comparing simplistic metrics that the press like to use. Software, management, and operations support have always been key in the routing market. Many faster or bigger router companies with unique technologies have gone nowhere. The list is long and depressing. In any case, Cisco has made a dangerous jump ahead by introducing a new operating system that is loosely based on QNX and enables multi-chassis systems. It also enables in-service software upgrades and host of other operations friendly features. Juniper was perceived as having an edge in software, but Cisco will have leapfrogged them if their software delivers (and that's a big if in many people's minds).
Juniper's TX is somewhat handicapped in it's first release (I believe only 2 systems can be linked) and doesn't have a paying customer. Cisco's CRS-1 is limited in interface types in it's first release and has adubious first set of customers. There are many more issues including: weight, power consumption, scalability, support for specific features, handling lawful intercept across a system that large, integration with management systems, etc., etc, etc.
In short, the market is hesitant to purchase either system due to tight CapEx budgets and other pressures. Given the relatively diminutive size of the core router market when compared to edge routing and LAN switching, this a more a battle for prestige than for anything else.
For more info and industry commentary, see:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?do
http://www.lightreading.co
http://www.lightreading.co
Never known anybody who's even tried a Cisco router. I've been pretty happy with my DeWalt DW625 plunge router - 3 horsepower, electronic variable speed, soft start, and a nice rack-and-pinion depth adjuster. And what is this tera bit everybody is talking about? I've heard of straight bits, v-groove bits, mortising bits, rabbeting bits, cove bits, roundover bits, and tongue-and-groove sets of bits, but never a tera bit. Anybody care to give me the lowdown on this new woodworking equipment?
Read I did that sentence four times and then afterwards I cannot image the idea of what it means to be it.
(I think I know what he meant, that because of problems with IOS, JUNOS was more reliable, but I'm not in tune with the router market so I can't be sure. But to continue, in English:)
The analysis of market gains and new product comparisons is useless without prices: what are the MSRP and street prices for the various models? Where do the prices look like they're going for the various models? What a manufacturer is doing with its prices would tell me a lot about their strategy and how competitive they really think their products are.
sigs, as if you care.
http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2004/062104noll e.html
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
I don't know too much about high-end routers, so I'm just gonna say this:
Begun, the router war has.
Okay, that is all.
Link to power-point presentation (Works great in OO.org): New Cisco Router presentation
I think the coolest thing to come out with these is going to be the GUI router and PIX config. You can see some screenshots of it in the presentation, its mind-boggling and worth drooling over.
These routers also have specialized processors on them for everything they do. They have crypto chips to encrypt/decrypt things, they have DSP cards to decode voice, VPN accelerator chips, chips to process ACLs etc. They also have some badass modules for them including Unity (voice-mail) module for the router itself! A module with full voice-mail capability including a 10GB hard disk to store the messages along with 4+ DSPs on the card to decode the voice traffic going to/from that card. This takes a hell of alot of load of the CPU for more generic tasks.
Anyway, the link again is http://blaze.topside.org/~topside/isr.ppt
But this one will do the trick!
sPh
On a serious note, I very much like the increased competition in the router market. That's good. Nobody gains and everybody loses when there's only one real player in the game.
I would like to see router developers be a little more FOSS-friendly. Hey, I'm not asking Cisco to Open Source IOS - that would never happen - but IOS supports only a small handful of routing protocols and is woefully lacking on QoS support. Whilst Cisco hardware is very likely highly tuned to the protocols they do use, software is software and a module system would be trivial to develop. (This would not be true if Cisco routers were "real" hardware routers, but almost nobody codes in hardware unless they absolutely have to.)
Would it hurt Cisco to support pluggable protocols and QoS algorithms? I can't see how. It would lessen the attractiveness of any competing system that had some feature Cisco themselves didn't support. And if a third-party module proved popular, it would likely be cheaper to buy it than pay a development team to write it from scratch.
This goes for all their competitors, too, of course. Whether it's Juniper, 3Com, or whoever, no company has the time or the resources to develop and maintain code for all the different protocols out there. They can only support the most popular, which may not be the most effective in any given case. (Popular tends to mean a compromise, not just on capability and throughput, but also on maintenance costs, development costs, etc.)
As things stand, Linux has vastly superior packet filtering and QoS support than almost any commercial router on the market. I've not used the *BSDs for a while, but from what I'm hearing, they're comparable or even better in some areas. All this code, all this expertise, all this R&D, and the major manufactuers can't even touch it. That's stupid.
Yes, license issues would probably block any attempt to port Linux modules over. Probably, but not definitely. As in the closed-source modules in Linux argument, dynamic linking can be considered to involve two distinct programs and therefore not in licensing conflict. The BSDs would have no problems at all, regardless.
Why would Cisco care about such code? Or any of the other manufacturers? It's not up to their usual standards, and they wouldn't make money from it.
Because it weakens the argument for moving to someone else. Because third-party modules aren't their problem to support, so they don't need to care about stability. Because anything that cuts R&D costs without cutting the R&D is earning money. Very significant amounts of money.
Because most of the uber-nerds who are involved in network administration are more likely to have a Unix-ish background (and therefore have a mindset geared to extensibility) than a desktop background (where brand-naming has typically won out over technical characteristics).
Finally, because that would allow these router companies to cash in on the media-darling of the moment (Open Source) without compromising on their supposed Intellectual Property rights. Potential gain, no risk of loss, sounds a good exchange to me.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You misread
It's the Terror Bit, a packet-data monster. You deploy it at the network perimeter, when hackers try to get in it sneaks up behind them and goes "Boo". Then it stabs them through the crotch with an ice-pick.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Linksys, A Division of Cisco Systems, Inc.
Cisco had pretty much given up on the cheap CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) market, then bought Linksys a year or so ago so they could keep a foot in it.
--Stafford
I would say the war is nearly over. Cisco will break out the old saying, Resistence is futile, you will be assimilated.
--- Tolerance is the axiomatic "virtue" of those without convictions ---
Cisco bought Procket Networks for the engeering talent that they have attracted with in the last few months, not their product. There is some speculation that Procket would never have a product, but rather being formed as a way for Cisco to recruit engineers from other routing companies. Think about it, the possibilty of having Cisco buy a start up you work for is a nice carrot to have dangled in front of you.
I think you got that confused with the time Bill Gates bought Home Simpson's internet company, CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet(tm), and quickly ransacked his house.
Of the software routers I know about, GateD went closed-source, has switched owners a few times since then, and seems to have lost most (or all) of its momentum and popularity.
Click, developed by MIT, is Open Source and under active development, but very few routing elements have been written for it. I know of no *BSD or Linux distributions that use it, either. Without visibility, nobody will know it's there to write anything for it.
Zebra, Quagga and MRT are all dead. I can't find a version of routed more recent than July 2000. Multicast routers, such as mrouted, pimd and pimdd, have been left to rot. The wireless software router AODV-UU is not so much maintained as kept on life-support. The others that I know of have long-since been buried and are now best-used as compost.
The number of Open Source geeks involved in science, research and networking is phenominal. Linux is gaining control over the top500 supercomputer list, and NetBSD keeps on setting new speed records on Internet 2. Both Linux and the *BSDs put commercial router systems to shame for the options they support, the flexibility of their packet filtering/mangling, and the level of control administrators can have. (Power... Power.... POWER...... Bwahahahahahaha!)
But with all this know-how, with all this knowledge of the fundamentals involved, and with all the obvious interest these people have in Open Source/Free Software, there is nobody out there working on a commercial-grade Open Source software router. Where routers are used, they're commercial, off-the-shelf branded products.
FOSS can beat NEC's "Earth Simulator", can turn Cray to pulp, frequently out-performs closed-source products on comparable hardware. The European Space Agency even uses a GPLed microprocessor in rockets and satellites. But nobody has been able to a software router project going.
This just does not compute. In the past, Cisco has even admitted to adding back-doors to their routers. I don't know if they still do, or if it's possible to close the holes in the older systems with a firmware upgrade. The problem with closed-source is that you can never know. You can only trust. The very people who know this and who would NEVER tolerate such uncertainty in any other area of computing - for reasons I will never understand - are totally accepting of this with their network routers and firewalls. The elements of their network most vital to maintaining integrity and security.
I'll wrap it up here, to say that I really, truly hope someone replies to this, saying "you're wrong", with a link to a live, vibrant, active Free/Open Source software routing project. That would be the best christmas present I could have.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Since it hasn't been mentioned in this thread. JunOS is essentially FreeBSD. So, you can do cool stuff that the /. crowd should enjoying like running multiple virtual routers on a laptop. http://www.lab-rats.net/v-olive.html
Being FreeBSD based, the Unix geek with no previous routing experience can learn it, IMHO, faster than the Cisco assuming no previous experience with either.
In Korea, only old people use terabit routers
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Hrm. let me open up my Cisco price book. list price (nobody pays list price) on the following:
CRS-1 Series 16 port OC48 card is $790,000
CRS-1 Series 4 port OC192 (10gbps) card is 1,030,000
CRS-1 16 slot, single chass is $450,000
The fan tray on the thing is $20,000!!!!! and you need the fan controller for another $13,000!!!
I think it is safe to say it would cost more than your house & car
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
http://www.xorp.org/
I haven't had time to play extensively, but it worked well during initial tests.
Of course, some of you may run and scream because Intel, the NSF, and Microsoft have provided some funding.
Well, I don't have a lot of experience with SSL offloading (we are an ISP and do webhosting, but we aren't a hosting provider with crazy amounts of SSL-enabled sites), but I met with Cisco a few weeks ago to purchase some new equipment (I don't think I am going to though), and they showed me their 7600 series boxes. One of the blades that you can stick in these is an SSL processor. Click
Here
to check out the link. Here is the summary:
Up to four SSL service modules can be installed in each chassis providing the fastest SSL session setup rates and bulk encrypted throughput in the industry and supporting the highest number of concurrent connections:
3000 connection setups/second per module--10,000 per Chassis fully-populated with SSL modules
300 Mbps bulk encrypted throughput per chassis module--1.2 Gbps per fully-populated with SSL modules
64,000 concurrent client connections--256,000 per chassis fully-populated with SSL modules
So it doesn't look like one blade will do you, but if you stick 4 in there, your rockin'
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.