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Cisco To Develop Third-Party APIs For IOS
MT628496 tips a Computerworld article on Cisco's announcement that it plans to build IOS on a UNIX kernel, in modules, and allow third-party developers to access certain parts of it. IOS has traditionally been a closely guarded piece of software without any way for anyone to add functionality. No timetable was given for when APIs will be available. A Forrester analyst said, "...the network is one of the least programmable pieces of the infrastructure. The automation and orchestration market is far more oriented towards servers, storage and desktop environments. The ability to dynamically change the network is a missing component." The article mentions that Juniper Networks had announced on Monday its own developer platform for Juniper routers, and it's available now.
IOS is universally accepted. The model of its tiered, context-determined command structure has been emulated by many. This is including Microsoft, with it's cascaded netsh and other command utilities.
That said, this kind of command navigation sucks. You are trapped in a maze of twisty, little prompts, all alike.
The structure of these commands were determined in antiquity, when embedded networking devices were resource starved for storage and memory. That's pretty clearly not the case today.
Screw IOS, its resistance to simple scripting, and its defiance to be committed easily to memory.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Ever seen a commodity router under a FULL 100Mbit/s load, let alone gigabit? They drop packets, mangle packets, route wrong packets... That is, until they hit a buffer overrun, overheat or just reboot repeatedly for no clear reason. They're not meant for serious use. They're designed to be actually capable of handling whatever Joe Average can do with his home network and nothing more. Because they're commodity hardware. Cheap crap, that is. Period.
People buy those expensive, rackable switches and routers because they want something *reliable* for *serious* use that absolutely requires reliability.
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
Soory, but I must feed this troll.
Most people do not buy 800 series routers, but if they do, it is typically because of managability and security. When it comes to being able to manage a remote network device and use a central authentication system, Cisco beats the pants off of ANY comsumer grade device.
Once you get to 1800 devices and above (even 1600 and 1700, but they are EOL) you have features that far exceed any consumer device.
Real routing capabilities (RIP, OSPF, EIGRP, ISIS, BRP, etc).
Modular interface cards. You have Modem, ISDN, xDSL, Cable, 56k, DS1, ATM, DS3, SONET, etc.)
QoS. Should be self explanitory
Various security functionality. VPN, tunnles, RADIUS, TACACS+, etc. (I am not a security guy)
Voice Terminate voice, act as a phone system (2800 and 3800) run VXML, etc
These are just the routers. Switches are just as much above the consumer grade as the routers are. QoS, port density, VLANs, true Layer 3, etc.
Both have their place and in some cases, a consumer grade equipment has its place in the corp environment. I have used them many times. T
To say Cisco is a rip-off is pure ignorance. (Do not use the list price to justify yourself either. NO ONE pays list for Cisco gear. As a general rule 35% - 50% is the rule.) Sure Cisco is not the cheapest or the best, but they provide a complete end-to-end solution and everyone knows Cisco. Heck, even Nortel switches and Extreme (I think) made their interfaces to emulate IOS.