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Open Source Router on Par With Cisco, Users Say
Jane Walker writes "On a mission to avoid paying top dollar for Cisco routers, two users say Vyatta's Open Flexible Router is a viable alternative to the proprietary norm. Find out about the pluses and minor hassles involved in deploying this alternative." This probably won't surprise the users of (much lower end) networking gear like the famously hackable Linksys WRT54G, which — like a number of internally similar routers — can be reconfigured with one of several open-source firmwares to do things impossible with the hardware as delivered.
Was working on it. Trying to (gasp) RTFA first...
It is not surprising that low-end software routers can offer most things a proper Cisco router can. However when you need hgher speeds, a software router can not cut it. It is then when hardware routers show their strenght. A 100Mbps line usually does not require a hardware router. A 10Gbps line does.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Perhaps a link to the actual product would be in order?
Vyatta Open Flexible Router
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Isn't this a way to avoid paying for the licensed software on Cisco equipment when it's sold second hand? (Not trolling or anything, I think it's ridiculous for Cisco to demand payment for software that's already been paid for once.)
IMHO, IANAL, TINLA, etc...
But then again for SMB - you don't need 100 MBit routing - many of your internal clients are slamming into your sub 10 Mbit internet connection anyway (that is probably further BW limited by the cable/phone company). Now for true enterprise - you really do need switching/routing at the ASIC level - real switching fabrics (not a glorified PCI bus) in the hardware etc. to handle the multiple GBit links, multiple OC12/OC48 connections to the world, etc.
This is where Cisco shines and I don't see "software only solutions" coming anywhere close
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I rent a housemate cable internet, which we had terrible problems with before. The problem is a bad cable causing a load of bad packets to 'clog' the router. It is the only cable long enough I have though, but the DD-WRT firmware worked a treat. It does allow some cool features, such as increasing the number of IP connections from 512 (the default) to 4,096 which is ideal for p2p. You can also boost wireless power from the 28mW default to 250mW+. Anyway, my problem with it clogging up was solved by setting up a cron job within the router so that it reboots at 5am each day. Not ideal, but the solution works until he gets off his ass and finaly buys a wireless card.
This seems to be an entirely software router that just runs on a standard x86 machine.
Isn't half the point of buying a dedicated-hardware router that you get ASICs and whatnot that do the job faster than software?
Can we have that article again, this time in English, please?
Huh? What?
It's my hardware. If I buy a Cisco router via eBay, you're telling me I'm not allowed to put Linux on it if I can figure out how?
The Linksys WRT54G firmware is released under the GNU GPL... That's like an invitation to modify it.
Two unknown consultants decide that Cisco sucks?
.TXT files on floppy.
If we were to judge solutions based solely on the word of two-or-more IT consultants, we would have "enterprise solutions" with MS-ACCESS backends, with a "robust" monthly backup to
Seriously, the holes in this article are big enough to park a datacenter full of Cisco hardware in.
Excuse me sir, can you please put down that glass (FUD) pipe.
Thanks!
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
I'm afraid I have to say that no real network engineer would use Linux (or even BSD, which is a better routing platform - that's why Quagga and Zebra were born and remain most comfortable on BSD) anywhere near the core or backbone. Sure, a drop-and-forget appliance will do for a branch office or a retail outlet - but you could use an $80 Netgear desktop switch in the same application and save yourself a lot of time and grief. Meanwhile, real network engineers - those running BGP and counting throughput in Mpps/interface - will continue to use real routers from Cisco (and Juniper for the more daring of us.) The problem's not the software, it's the hardware. When you can plug multiple 48 10GE linecards into a toy platform, post a story on Slashdot. Until then, stick to IOS for routing.
So you're claiming to be a lawyer, but I have a few questions.
Why post as an anonymous coward?
Are you violating your client confidentiality with the parent post?
If I wipe their firmware (which I have a license to use) how am I violating their copyright?
Summary: Works great, supposed problem sounds like it was a driver issue more than an application issue.
Reads like a well-placed article-vertisement.
The "as long as we're not switching half the US" comment are the one's I grow tired of. It's a well-wrapped insult.
I'm not saying Linux is the best tool for routing half the nation, but the comment points out some things that do prevent more linux adoption.
1. "free" is not as good as something I paid for
2. Don't fsck with the status quo.
I admin a company 100% cisco routers/firewalls and I know for a fact Linux can do what gets done.
I'm not going to tell the boss to "just" switch or evangelize too much because of the social/economic implications of doing so may impact my future. I like my employer, they like me, so when we need another router, it's a cisco. I am personally disappointed by this, but I think it explains why innovation takes -so- long to come to the data center. (at least in the U.S.)
Let's not forget that cisco can fire most of their software devs and use a linux-based router project if it ever got close to competing with some Cisco products. Does that qualify as innovation? I'd say no. It's not cheaper or better.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It is great that someone is out there tyring to put some preassure on Cisco however this company is not it. I think the average Linux installation with NAT is a bigger threat that this project.
PC hardware is a joke, slow backplanes, limitation on how many interfaces you can plug in. On the techspecs the number of interfaces types they use is well very very limited. Then reliability of PCs a joke compared to a Cisco box.
Where is this product used?
- Is this a bloated replacement for the US$20 taiwan PPPoE router you can buy? The taiwanese will beat it on TCO hands down on power consumption.
- Is this for the edge of the network to service downstream customers? Why part away from the thousands of installations which live, have predictable and very proven track record of something like a Cisco 7200VXR..
The article (Advertorial) is nicely skewed as making Cisco seem expensive. Go on ebay and look for Cisco routers with FE ports, you can find them for a few hundred dollars. Or try to compare this with 3550 which will provide 24 ports with Layer 3 functionality for way below the US$2000.
I am tired of Cisco killing products off when they feel like it.
They could go into the market of breathing new life into a product that is being cancelled by other vendors. Firebox II anyone?
Vyatta still need a strategy. period.
In or around 1999 I had a 1000 device network routing through a 133Mhz PC running Linux. The 133Mhz system practically thought is was sittle idle as it shuffled packets between three 100 megabit networks.
I'm not suprised at all that these Open Source solutions are on par with Cisco for many users. My only real concern would be support. At least back then (I have not dealt with them recently), Cisco had great support and would "own" network problem resolution in a way that made it worth paying their price.
Soccer Goal Plans
a small truck can replace a semi truck.... if you are moving small amounts of items.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
The Linux on WRTs and such is not at the same league as Cisco or other specialised OSes on their own hardware.
Home user may see that it seems to do the same thing, but this is still far from the reality.
Ok, I haven't looked at the performance numbers, but as a network administrator of a medium sized corporate network I could care less. Whether it be Cisco, Juniper, Nortel or 3Com the difference is in the support. When my wan interface or network interface dies at 2am I don't think anyone from the OSS community is going to have a parts depot within 4 hours to fix the problem. I also don't see 24x7 tech support phone numbers manned by volunteers anytime soon. Vendors don't make the money on the hardware, they make it on services and support. I love OSS, but Linux and OSS are not the magic pill for everything.
"The feature set was comparable to your standard Cisco router," Knox said. "They were offering translating, gateway capability, Samba file sharing, VLAN trunking to 11q ... it really looked like a corporate-level router," he said.
Since when do "corporate-level routers" offer samba file sharing? This seems like the LAST thing I would ever want to put on a router. The only thing I could possibly see Samba being useful for is downloading log/config files. But on a router that is kinda scary, SCP seems much more secure and just as useful.
Open source routing is definitely an option now though. Over 3 years ago the web hosting company I worked for swithced out their Cisco routers that couldn't handle the slighest DDoS attack for a couple AMD based Linux boxes that could easily handle wirespeed DDoS attacks with ease. Not to mention they were a fraction of the cost.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
It was my understanding that Cisco was the best network hardware manufacturer out there, but after having 3 linksys routers die on me in the last 5 years (one a week out of warranty coverage). I won't be going anywhere near linksys again.
My buddy just lost one as well.
Hate to break it to ya, but Linksys is owned by Cisco.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Well spoken. Not everybody (in fact, almost nobody) lives in dickhead DMCA coprrupted USA.
get ASICs and whatnot that do the job faster than software
I agree with you in principal(sp?) but I have a question:
As we upgrade some machines, I've got dual cpu (1.5ghz =/-) and 2+GB RAM being replaced by dual cores. Would server hardware be able to handle as much, if not more than the cisco asics (2800's mostly) I've got?
I get a damn good router for free. And I've got a spare parts inventory + redundancy. What am I missing?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Since when do we listen to "users?"
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Fully depends on the load you plan to place on it. If you're using something with custom ASICs, it's probably a multi-gigabit switch and you're not going to beat the performance of one of those with any off-the-shelf hardware. Mind you, if your target is a Cisco 2924, then go for it... they'll only handle a little over 1Gbps of actual switched traffic...
...Steve
Your understanding of technology is obviously zilch, zippo, nada, nothing. And that leaves me with the feeling that your understanding of law is also generally diminished. And I presume you've never changed any software on the PC you own?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I use Debian at home for a general purpose router and firewall and it is very flexible. There have been times when I've been tempted to deploy it as a small/medium business router in lieu of cisco but it's not just about the software, it's about the hardware as well. For a reliable system you need reliable parts... which are more expensive... preferable a cpu with a low thermal dissipation but still fast enough to handle the load, which is going to cost you money and either a RAID system or (ideally) a flash based storage system, which is going to cost money. You can build a system that will beat Cisco's cost/feature set easily. Building a system that can compete on cost/mtbf ... not so easy... and generally just not worth the effort.
The article referenced a "still servicable pc" ... which roughly translate into "a machine that we picked up from behind the receptionists desk and cleaned all the dust bunnies out of.... *shudders*
Strange - why would you expect companies to step down from decent DSL speeds to T1 rates.
When you need reliability, you have to give up on DSL/cable, because no DSL or cable provider is going to give you service guarantees. If a DSL/cable line doesn't provide it's advertised 2Mb/s download throughput, that's too bad; you might be able to negotiate your bill down. And if it goes down, it's going to be you reporting it to your ISP, not the other way around...
But a T1 circuit (generally) has both through throughput and uptime guarantees written into the contract. And automated monitoring of its performance, and fast notification that something's wrong, 24 hours a day. I've had DSL circuits be out for days; the longest a T1 circuit was down was 8 hours, and there were severe financial penalties proscribed for that event.
That's not to say a T1 circuit is perfect; we use a bonded pair of them to feed one site. One went down, due to an incident with a trencher. Verizon promptly fixed it... by moving the circuit to another pair that tested good in the cable. Guess which pair got used... If you guessed the pair that the second circuit lived on, you'd be right, and it went down. This went on for a day, alternating which circuit was up and down, until one of our people met the Verizon tech at the repair site. "You do know that there are TWO T1 circuits here, don't you?" "Oooops..."
If you're not paying at least $100s of dollars a month, you aren't getting any sort of guarantees.
...Steve
I think most points have been covered now.
I think the way we can help Vyatta is by giving them suggestions as to where they should go in the market.
What direction should they take in your opinion?
I actually just flashed my GS v1 to DD-WRT yesterday. I;ve tried many other firmwares...Talis/Freeman, Alchemy, HyperWRT. They all had the same problem when in client mode I would loose the wireless connection to the AP and would have to re-boot to get it to reconnect. DD-WRT is the only one that works without a hitch, although I noticed HyperWRT had faster thruput (when it worked). It also doesn't get clogged up like everyother firmware when using Bittorrent or P2p
OK first of 2800 series routers realy dont have much in the asic department they realy are software routers with some asics avalible to speed up things like crypto. Realy a PC can deal with just about anything that a sub 7200 can handle. Latency might be a bit higher but that could be solved with some firmware as x86 procs are not happy dealing with gigabit speeds and min MTU sized packets due to the number of interupts generated, now I would not want to do that with a 2800 either.
The problem with PC's is more that the only inferfaces that you can get are ethernet and if your going to compare a PC to a 65xx series switch it's going to get burried of course it also costs 10-20 times more than a good pc server.
Now a 3550 that has an EMI image would be the closest thing to a PC it's about 4-7k with 24 fast e ports or 12 gig ports the server your going ot need to route 24 gigs of traffic is gong to cost more than that from a Dell or HP as your talking about a lot of slots (5 2 port gig cards plus the onboard pair) and is going to need 3GB a sec of backplane and memory access just for traffic and I dont even want to think about the interupts per second.
Cisco has it's place and it's not low density localy manged 100bt routing.
No sir I dont like it.
You are ignoring the other half of the equation. Specialized hardware typically requires less power to do a given task than general purpose hardware to do the same task. Ie. a 600 Mhz P2-generation Celeron + Hauppage PVR150 MPEG2 encoder with 192 MB RAM that sits at 97% idle while converting analog tv to 720x480 MPEG2 vs. a 2.2 Ghz Athlon 64 X2 with 2 GB RAM that cannot convert analog tv to 720x480 MPEG2 in realtime.
So, yeah. It is very likely that a high-ish end PC will be able to compete evenly with a low-ish end Cisco router, but you're going to pay more in power. More than you'd pay up front? Dunno. But if your business relies on your net connection being there and working properly, then I'd go with the Cisco, solely for the fact that Cisco has motivations to make sure their shit works that OSS developers don't.
This package looks great, and I've got a couple of things to comment on that have been being said. Firstly, everybody seems to be talking about this like its some kind of CATOS/IOS ala Cisco replacement. They don't seem to be billing it like that at all, as far as I can tell. Of course, the dedicated "meant to do that" hardware solution from Cisco is going to be legions better than any software you can stuff on a PC.
Lets take the discussion where it probably should have gone, to the guys contracted to set up a network for a local law firm office, with 20 employees. Maybe a veterenerian's office that probably doesn't do that much business (dollar wise). It's the folks like this that might still need what a Cisco has to offer in features, but doesn't need what Cisco offers in capacity, and definatly not what they offer in cost. Considering how (it looks to be) well documented, I don't think that the contractor mentioned will have any problems supporting it. It's our bread and butter.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
According to Cisco it is in fact your hardware, but it's still their software, and you can't sell it or transfer it.
This bit me a couple of years ago when I bought a 2611 on e-bay, and wanted to put the latest security fixes on it. Not being Cisco certified, I contacted Cisco to find out about getting or purchasing updates. I was told that my router was "gray market" and that I would need to buy another license for it.
"How much is that?", I asked.
"$1500.00."
"Holy shit!" (hangs up phone, lest they send the software gestapo.)
I had my lawyer review the license agreement that happened to be included in the box. He concurred. I was screwed if I wanted to use this router legimately.
I have the money to buy as much Cisco gear as I need, but this pissed me off so much that I haven't bought any since that day. Nor have any of my customers.
Cisco is not the only game in town, and they aren't the best any more. The people saying they are; either are not looking, or don't know anything else. Cisco just seems to be the only company with a product line extending from the very low to the very high-end.
Some people claim using a PC can't do that speed/capability with a PC and software and it requires dedicated Cisco hardware. Others posting that they ARE using a PC with software AND getting those speed the other half said was impossible.
/. has a bunch of technical readers that come from internet and tech companies but there are far more companies out there that use a fraction of that bandwidth. Use all companies with internet access and routing needs when thinking about that, not just "internet" or technical companies.
Who do you believe?
IMHO, I think the people that said it can't be done have not tried it so they are assuming it can't be done. There are many theories of why it should not work, why it should be impossible, why it would be so hard to maintain, but these are theories. No practice or experience. But what about the back-plane! Has anyone tried to achieve some capability with a PC based router and it did not work? What were you trying and at what point did the PC based router start to die off?
Other notes..
1) People that acknowledge that a PC/software router will work but like the comfort of separating themselves from any technical involvement if the thing breaks. 24x7 coverage by TAC and nothing less.
IMHO, that has merit but it is not a technical limit of the PC based solution.
2) There seems to be an assumption that every company needs to route at least 10 or more Gbit connections around the world though one piece of hardware. IMHO, the number of companies that need to do that is probably less then 1 per 2 thousand companies. Yes,
When using a PC as a router, what DSL modems do people use?
I am trying to find some ADSL2+ modems to connect to our Cisco routers.
(in the past we have used Cisco ADSL WIC, but it has become clear that a consumer-grade Alcatel modem outperforms those, and even worse: there is NO ADSL2+ WIC...)
The modems have to support PPPoA and provide a transparent "bridge mode" where incoming traffic is delivered on the ethernet port with the Internet IP address as destination. This would be the same mode you would want for a PC-based router between LAN and Internet via DSL.
The problem is that it becomes difficult to find a "dumb" modem like that, especially with a reasonable build quality.
Everyone has NAT routers with 4-port switch, Wireless access point, VOIP gateway, printer port and what not, but I just need a dumb modem with no frills that increase the failure chance or that interfere with transparent operation.
For example, the more recent Alcatel/Thomson models appear to offer a transparent mode, but it has proven to be unreliable. I think the NAT engine is in the path in a 1:1 mapping mode. After some days of operation it appears to drop packets of longstanding connections while still servicing new connections.
We never had those problems with our old Alcatel 510, but that is not ADSL2+.
Any idea where to go for a reliable, transparent, ADSL2+ MODEM??
You are kind of nuts.
Many people, thousands of them in fact have bought LinkSys and other routers and have modified them with new more functional software.
As far as I know the DMCA has been used only once to "protect" hardware from modification. It never went to court and the company pretty much went out of business.
The modification of purchased hardware is protected under the first sale doctorin. The same laws that allow you to buy a car and then sell of the parts one buy one.
The DMCA would only come into play if some form of encryption was broken. Just deleting the firmware on a system and replacing it with new firm ware would not be covered.
If this isn't true then why hasn't Microsoft shut down all the sites offering Linux for the XBox?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I see. You guys don't use money in the 23rd century, so it doesn't matter if nobody buys your router.
That's all well and good if you need ethernet in, and ethernet out, and are doing a static route, or RIP with 2 possible routes. Try and run EIGRP, or OSPF with multiple DS1's, or a DS3, bonded DS1's, OC-3, OC-12, GigE interfaces? What if you need to convert ATM to Ethernet?
I've tested throughput on a GigE port on a variety of desktops and laptops, and aftermarket GigE cards. It's terrible. Proper hardware to ensure even 60% of GigE throughput is EXPENSIVE.
NAT, PPPoE, terminating VLANs, routing a lot of little subnets, terminating RBE sessions... all of that stuff adds up. Throwing away a 7204 and saying you can do it all with a Linux box? No way.
Now, a Linux box can route fine between several Ethernet ports. And maybe you have 2000 LT2P sessions going, but that's probably all you need to do.
Software routers might be fun to play around with, but how many people want their internet provider to ditch Cisco and take the software router plunge?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Cisco sometimes adds customized processors for special applications - hardware encryption chips are especially useful for triple-DES, compared to doing the encryption in a CPU, though they're less critical for AES, and the CPU still gets involved in packet handling so it can sometimes still be a bottleneck.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
We maxed out on our small soho router at a small company I worked at. I then turned to smoothwall (www.smoothwall.org) and loadeda ll4/?featurecomparison. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned on this topic before. I'm not sure how vyatta compares though.
it on a 700 Mhz pentium 3 system. Worked wonders. Lots of features and addons/extensions from the community. They also have a commercial version with a gang load of features http://www.smoothwall.net/products/corporatefirew
Cisco just buys out al lthe companies it can to extend it's portfolio. The PIX, IDS, wireless (both), MARS, etc. Infact even the 6500/7500's.
The only thing they have is
1. You wont get fired for buying Cisco
2. Support
3. They are top notch, maybe not always the best, but they are top notch.
But yea, making people buy the router again when they buy used is scummy. Even if you buyt a PIX-501, ithe software will cost more than the hardware new from cisco at full price.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
Vyatta is not just open-source routing software, they are a company that supports said software. Yes, if you have a support contract you can call them at 4 am if your network breaks.
The term "open-source router" is extremely vague. A router is a physical device that forwards packets at layer 3. In the case of the Vyatta OFR (as wel as Zebra, OpenBGPd, etc), the routing software (roughly, the RIB) is Vyatta, the forwarding software (roughly, the FIB) is the Linux kernel, and the hardware is a PC. In addition to various silicon-based solutions to speed up packet forwarding, software projects such as the Click! modular router exist that replace the routing code in a commonly available kernel (Linux, BSD, etc) that increase packet forwarding performance exponentially. The fact is that the commodity packet forwarding code in off-the-shelf OSs (OSS or commercial) hasn't evolved much in a long time, because it hasn't needed to.
Procket (founded by Tony Li, bought by Cisco for the engineering team) had also developed software forwarding based products that had similar performance without using custom forwarding hardware (1+ mpps on x86). Too bad they will never see the light of day. Of course, their hardware was also capable of 12bpps (yes, billion) in 2003....
Too bad they only support Sangoma serial cards.
When they are talking about "Linux routers replacing Cisco" They are realy realy realy realy meaning Linux replacing ALL cisco kit.
""Wow- switches for high speed stuff? Jesus what networks do you work with? Where is my OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP on Linux?""
Quagga provides:
OSPF support. Version 2 and 3, RIP, RIPng, and BGP
EIGRP is propriatory to Cisco. Free software would not be able to legally provide that functionality.
Also there is OpenBGP for Linux which is BGP-specific. (originated from OpenBSD)
""Where is my VRRP, HSRP and GLBP?""
HSRP is propriatory to Cisco. Free software would not be able to legally provide that functionality.
VRRP infringed on Cisco's HSRP-related patents. They own your ass. SUCK IT!
I don't know about GLBP.. But I do know that the currect term for it is "Cisco Gateway Load Balancing Protocol"
You can probably guess the rest of that one.
What you want to use is CARP (again coming from OpenBSD). It's a Free redundancy protocol. Very effective.
""Where are the DS3 and OC3 interfaces?""
Linux has supported several devices that would provide that functionality. Look for 'Linux WAN' support.
""Linux works fine for smaller isntallations. If all you are trying to do is connect your office to the Internet then we're not even on the same page. If you work at an ISP, large corporation, or otherwise handle core routing requirements you would never even consider using Linux.""
Don't try to out-1337 the Linux hackers and programmers for Linux systems. They kick Microsoft's ass in some markets (embedded, enterprise storage, super computers, etc etc), I don't think you have a chance.
Linux now runs the most powerfull computers on the planet. Linux based systems regularly break storage network speed records. It's been used to break point to point TCP networking records. Don't you think that some people highly knowledgable with networking would not be able to provide teh resources nessicary for running something like a ISP?
Maybe you never ever considured Linux... because you never ever considured linux and have no idea of the capabilities of it?
Maybe it's time.
The limitation is mostly in the hardware. No custom ASIC units. Still though.. Those 2ghz Pentium cpus can proccess ACLs faster then a dozen of your average cisco routers. TCP offloading nic cards are aviable and all sorts of stuff. Linux has proven performance.
Network administrator ... HEH!
.. for those with need of features on budgets and not requiring bonzai bandwidth, a software solution on commodity hardware may suit many just fine. If it breaks, fix it. You built it and can probably build another one complete from the spare parts closet in four hours or less.
Sounds like your the guy with the rolodex in charge of calling the help line!
Anyway
Of course it is easier to put in emergency requests for flight line hardware met at the door by onsite technicians as long as your company has no problem cutting the checks. Besides, those losses can be readily offset by firing your worthless ass and giving the sacred rolodex to the night janitor.
On the other hand, if your company is really that upscale, mission critical and money flush, why don't you just inventory replacement hardware and skip the blue nosed service and support contracts?
Well the truth is, many of you water cooler cowboys walking around with your head up your job title, just can't get it done when you get right down to it.
Fact.
You obviously have a bone to pick with Cisco, so I'll leave most of it alone. There is just this one comment of yours that blew your whole credibility:
those magic serial config cables that cisco guys use can be tough to come by in an emergency, but a floppy disk, keyboard and a monitor are easy.
Maybe it's just a sign of the times, but I don't know any system/network administrator worth his salt that didn't have a pile of serial cables and adaptors laying around. And if I bought an expensive piece of hardware that required a serial console for _setup_ and I didn't keep a serial cable with it for emergencies, then I would sure hope I wasn't fired after an emergency. Those serial cables aren't magic, expensive, or complicated.
I'm not sure about cost, but you only need 2 slots using one of these -> Six Port Copper Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express Server Adapter
I'm using the PCI-X versions of those cards right now. PCI-X is a bit limiting, but we need the ports more than the bits.
Its simpler then that. Appliances, enterprise grade hardware or software. That's job security.
:)
...right, its just me holding the bag.
Sure, you might save a few bucks and maybe, if you're good, come up with something better. But try explaining that to your non-technphile CEO when something (and something always does) goes wrong.
If my gear fails and I did the best that I could (firmware upgrades, software updates, hardware lifecycle, etc) its no sweat off my back. We rush to repair our systems and someone wags their finger at Sun or Cisco or whoever for a little while (or reconsiders their purchasing policy and my recommended updates).
If I cobble together a great system
There will ALWAYS be exceptions which is no doubt why this projects even being mentioned (and I'm not knocking it), but all you enterprise hot-shots probably already know better. Money doesn't just get you quality hardware (which it often does) it gives you *and* your company a little buffer.
It sounds better when you explain to a client that your primary Cisco router failed then trying to explain your custom gear (unless of course, you lie, then your covered...but lying, which according to Wired is only good if your an MBA).
Quack, quack.
Just because it's OSS doesn't mean you can't pay for on-site support, on-site hot backups, the works.
Whether it's OSS or closed source is irrelevant in that regard.
Except with OSS you are likely to have more flexibility and better value for money.
"Support" is often a boogeyman pushed by salesdroids when they don't have anything better to offer, trying to scare a customer into getting locked in to their expensive, proprietary solution while ignoring the flexibility, including support, that OSS can offer.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
So, imagine a single machine with 30, 50, or 60 network interfaces coming out of it, all sprouting USB cables. What a mess.
The more that I think about it, that's not so much of a daydream as a nightmare.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Hello, in my experience people don't really buy Cisco routers because they just want to shift packets. The days of edge routers dumbly sending packets out to the internet for buildings of 100-500 users are over.
Instead they want built-in VPN concentration, firewalling, the ability to automatically dial-out their VoIP calls if the WAN goes down, flexible WAN links, content caching &c &c &c.
While a software router is a great solution for switching packets, it quickly stops scaling in a single box when you want to add the extra features offered by Cisco's 2800 and 3800 series, which this product is touted to compete with.
Here's an example: A big bank wants to install routers in one of its branch offices. Naturally, it'll need a firewall. Then it wants to push content to each bank for digital signage, such as videos to play on their flatscreen TV's. It also wants Quality of Service and redundant PSTN links for their IPT solution and local call processing, just in case the WAN link fails. The branch has only, say, 25-50 users, but the dedicated single-box hardware is more effective for them because they are able to buy the unit and incrementally upgrade it, adding these features with no performance loss and have it all supported from a single phone call... No need to handle different vendors. As around 80% of the cost is running solutions as oppossed to procuring them, this is a good deal.
This is why software routers are addressing the wrong market. How many businesses now intend to just shove packets out to the 'net?
Now there's one hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is!
http://blogs.sun.com/sbullen/entry/who_buys_cisco_ 3750_s
I would NEVER take our main CCisco driven backbone down and replace it with Open Source. Again, support is the issue. If there's an issue with the router, Cisco probably definitely knows about it....even the obscure. Sometimes they don't, but they still help you anyway. Can support contracts be had for a Open Source router?? Will the support actualy help me or tell me something like L1nux R0x0rs, RTFM y0u n00b?
Gorkman