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Google Router Rumors
An anonymous reader writes "There's a new rumor that Google is developing its own router. The company won't comment on the story, but it's been in the hardware business for a while and expanded its presence with Android. If Larry Ellison can go halvsies with HP on a server, then Eric Schmidt should certainly be able to make Cisco nervous."
...to procrastinate on the CCNA test.
THL phish sticks
All I need now is google underwear that twitters for me with real time gps tracking so I know where I've been.
I seem to remember rumors of them building their own insane (10 GbE) hardware switches. And I don't think that's hard to imagine as nothing on the market at the time could possibly meet their needs.
... like many claims they could not be operating on TCP/IP stacks on the inside. Because it's such a resource hog in some respects but that's irrelevant--I'm certain they can apply some of their ideas universally. I would put my money on them being the leader in research on networks and network theory ... probably past Cisco even (although behind the NSA as no one's ever sure about those guys). I feel that networking is so closely tied to their bread and butter search application that they should be dumping huge R&D into that field. I can't offer proof but it certainly makes sense to me.
Of course, there's a lot of questions that remain to be answered
And all I can say is that it's about time someone put pressure on the home & enterprise networking hardware companies. What a stagnant squabbling market that has become.
My work here is dung.
I bet these guys are pretty are pretty nervous too.
Well, besides the obvious "buy the box" revenue, how else can Google make money on it? [tinfoil] Always consider every router as a man-in-the-middle. Suddenly, every http: you visit will "help target your ads." One National Security Letter later, and every mailto: and http: and irc: and torrent: that you visit will "enable investigations into conspiracy models."[/tinfoil]
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Predicted here.
Or, maybe I was the one to put the bug in their ear?
More
I hope they include sensible and up-to-date standards and protocols. I'm thinking about the possibilities of the interface of the tomato firmware and importantly, inclusion of ipv6 support. If we want this to happen in this generation we need to get software support on at least basic networking devices(thinking of routers and OSes).
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Since Google has recently expressed an interest in embedded Ninnle Linux, there's now speculation that this new router of theirs will use this as the operating system.
It seems likely to me that since Google is full of really smart people who seem to have a touch of the NIH syndrome, it probably isn't surprising that they wanted to develop their own routers from scratch instead of paying through the nose for Cisco or Juniper devices, especially since they needed hundreds or thousands of them and really don't want to have to pay for support contracts. I'd see a Google router announcement as just a productization of something they already use internally, just like Protocol Buffers.
The problem is that Google develops tech internally that is extremely good at solving their problems, but they don't always apply well outside of Google. Protocol Buffers aren't exactly obsoleting XML and from all indications they probably never will. The Google router will probably be super fast and simple, but lack a whole bunch of the more obscure features. The problem is that there's someone out there for each one of those obscure features, and if you don't support it your product won't even make it in the door. This is a problem Juniper runs into a lot, they have good and fast hardware, but the only thing it does is route.
In fact the article points out that Google's router is most likely to compete directly with Juniper instead of Cisco.
I read the internet for the articles.
They'll be 100% on the up and up WRT implementing standards compliance, and will release every last detail as open source, no-strings-attached goodness for the world to use. Such an act would be a giant cudgel that they could use against arguments that they're embracing proprietary tactics. They should do for routers what Android is trying to do for phones.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Hopefully they will get IPv6 in as a standard feature. I get annoyed at being told I need to start getting ready for IPv6, only to find out that the Apple Airport is more or less the only one offering this feature out of the box.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
But everything will be routed through Google first.
Presumably the people that would buy stuff just because it was made by Google are not a major demographic. So Google will need to do something to
1) raise the barrier to entry, no point issuing a device that anyone could make with Linux and a '386. Also, many cisco routers (eg. the 1800 series) genuinely represent value for money.
2) Provide good quality support.
So to raise the barrier to entry, it has to be a pretty special product, maybe doing the most useful 80% of what a cisco does flawlessly and improving upon cisco in come other areas (ones I can think off of the top of my head are ease of deployment and virtualization (vrf)).
The other reason people insist on Cisco, even when there are other cheaper options, is that they believe Cisco support their product well with training and technical support. This in my experience is an illusion. By and large the Cisco TAC is awful and maintaining certification is expensive and time consuming and the training materials are riddled with misprints, bugs and corporate "best practices" that are self-serving to Cisco.
So Google have a huge hill to climb, but I'm sure that it can be done in the space of a couple of years.
Nullius in verba
TFA says that Juniper is doomed because Google is getting ready to switch to their own in-house brand of routers. I find this difficult to believe for several reasons. One is that even if Google is Juniper's biggest customer, one customer does not a demise make -- Juniper has many other customers, including the entire UUnet (MCI, WorldCom, Verizon Business, whatever they're calling themselves this year) backbone. But there are far more practical reasons. Routers contain a lot of specialized hardware designed for rapid switching of packets. Google may have a lot of smart people working for them, but they certainly don't have the resources on board to design and build all of those ASIC's and other custom hardware, and it doesn't really make sense for them to get into that business during a recession just for an in-house project. (And no, don't give me that line about how a fast enough server with multiple Ethernet cards can substitute for even a mid-grade Cisco or Juniper. I manage a data center network and know the numbers. It can't even come close, no matter how good the software is, because a general purpose computer has to forward every packet using software, while a real router only makes a routing decision once and then all the rest of the packets for that destination are switched in hardware at wire speed.)
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
My router works fine, and I don't have Google stealing all of my LAN packets and serving me ads.
A fucking grouter had better make me warm delicious waffles if they want me to buy it. Even then, I'd only use it to make waffles.
And now I'm off to amazon to look for a waffle maker.
Ninnle Linux or NinnleBSD will give them the flexibility to do just that.
Really? I read on Reuters about Google Router Rumors. Realistically, the race to rise in the realm of routers is a reasonable request from Page and Brin.
I'll recuse myself, I realize I am rambling.
I really hope they throw in IPv6. There are no consumer-level routers available with IPv6 support; it's been driving me crazy. Everyone will probably be forced to buy new routers in a few years anyway.
With that said, I think Google is probably developing a router for their own in-house use. I have doubts this will actually hit the consumer market.
google.slashdot
Of course Google would not waste time developing their own ASICs. Companies like Marvell, Broadcom, and Dune offer plenty to choose from, and companies such as FDRY and JNPR already use these to build their own offerings.
It only makes sense for Google to use the building blocks to make a device that meets their specific needs.
you do know that design companies exist which do ASIC design on contract and give you GDS II files, right ?
1. it's open source
2. it's open source
3. it's open source
and probably some other reasons too.
The Apple Airport Express and Airport Extreme routers support IPv6, although there's a bug in the latest firmware for doing configured tunnels.
This
Cisco offers simple push-button technology for routers, but they also offer the best customer service in the business.
Google's customer service record is not as good as Cisco's, and that is a condition that will not improve.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
That's a great marketing perk if nothing else. Why deny the claim when you can easily say "No Comment" and leave the world speculating. Positive spin like that is golden.
I hadn't noticed til you mentioned it, but yes, I have not had to reboot my Linksys v6(running ddwrt) for at least 5 months, which is when I plugged it into my UPS. Nice!
The answer is obviously 'c' and that's exactly why I would never allow such a device onto my network.
Without the 2nd Amendment, the others are just suggestions.
I have this mental image of a case with wide blue, red, yellow, blue, green then red stripes as well as similarly colored network cables, ethernet jacks, lights and buttons....
BARF!!!
Oh, I'm sure it'll work great - but hide that bitch in the rear of your rack space, that's for sure.
These are the same reasons I giggle at know nothing unix goofballs claiming they are going to bring down cisco with their favorite distro, a clone pc, and two nics.
Oh I can see it now! Get you GCNA, GCNP, and finally your GCIE!!! Allow me to laugh at the thought that Cisco should be worried. Har Har Har. Google network certs, here they come :)
It's interesting that Apple OSX has supported IPv6 for a while (probably a side-effect from using BSD) and Apple routers (Airport Extreme) supports IPv6 and (if I remember the specs right) tunneling IPv6 over IPv4 out of the box and enabled.
While that does not represent the vast majority of the computers/home routers in use, this does show that some companies are trying to start the trend.
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
And I JUST beat Deus Ex again.
If Mr. Page announces the implementation of an Aquinas protocol I may just have to start up the NSF.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Everybody seems to be assuming that these new routers will be for sale. That's obviously not going to happen — there just isn't room in the marketplace for a new player, even if that player is Google. Breaking into a new hardware marketplace is hard. You have to develop sales channels, create a hardware support organization, set up an operations organization to manage production, etc. etc.
I know about these things because for the last couple of years my job has been to document some of Sun's hardware products. Before that I mostly documented software, and the shear complexity of designing, building, distributing, selling and supporting actual physical products still boggles my mind. At product team meetings I sometimes feel at sea, even though the technical concepts I have to deal with are actually much simpler than those I faced when I was on software product teams. The logistics are just mind boggling.
Google isn't set up to be "in the hardware business". They make their own servers because there are no manufacturers that are able to meet their specialized needs. Now they seem to have decided that their routers also require specialized in-house designs. They haven't tried to sell these servers to other companies, and they won't try to sell their routers. Even if they could hope to compete, it would mean building up the kind of technical bureaucracy that Google's top echelon has no interest in managing.
Hell, they don't really have a proper bureaucracy for the much simpler job of creating and distributing their software products. If they actually charged money for most of them, they'd be trouble.
And Android? How does Android count as being "in the hardware business"? Is Google selling a cell phone I haven't heard about?
Or Google could buy Juniper. Let the rumor drive down the stock and pick them up at fire sale prices.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Post is exactly right. The ASICs are already out there and in use by pretty much everyone for their COTS routers.
When one gets into the carrier-scale equipment I don't have a clue how that stuff goes. But I've seen enough low-end ( $10,000) routers taken apart to know that AC's comments are accurate.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Am I the only one who read this and thought, "Hmmm, it must be time for Google to renew their support contracts with Juniper.".
"leak" a rumor about no longer needing Juniper, and watch juniper lower their support rates.
How does this in any way contribute to Google's business model? Does anyone really want a Beta router?
"...even if Google is Juniper's biggest customer, one customer does not a demise make..."
That really depends. For smart companies, they've sufficiently diversified their client base such that the loss of one will hurt but not cripple. Some clients, however, just become so damn big and a company simply can't get enough other clients or the increase the volume from the other existing clients high enough to balance against that one mega-client. Once one client represents a massive percentage of your revenue and the loss of that client would force you into immediate emergency restructuring in the hopes of survival, then yes, one client a demise can potentially make.
...if it was free, or paid for itself. and google paid me for the info they gleaned from my network traffic. Ultimately its nothing but a data-mining tool for google, so it is only fair that they pay me for the bandwidth and my data...
i know, i'm just hilarious!
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
The questions really are: how many different types of ASICs and boards are in those routers plus how many of the ASICs cannot be replaced with FPGAs and how many of the different board types cannot be rationalized to a smaller number of types? Remember that Google probably doesn't need the level of flexibility offered across Juniper's product range. It is clear that Google already has expertise in chip design -- it's not hard to find board design expertise (either in-house or outsourced).
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Just like with the 10G switches, this has all the earmarks of something for purely internal use rather than something they're planning to sell. That means their current vendor, which is Juniper according to TFA, loses Google as a customer, but that's about it.
If anything, Cisco should be happy that their competitor is losing business.
Vista also supports 6to4 out of the box. Unlike OS X, however, a Vista machine advertises itself as a 6to4 gateway on the anycast address, meaning that plugging a Vista machine in behind a NAT will break every other IPv6-enabled machine (including other Vista machines).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It is clear that Google already has expertise in chip design
What expertise have they demonstrated? Android doesn't mean much. That means they could design a router? Now creating a router that only supports a couple of protocols that they specifically need as opposed to the general purpose routers that require IOS/JUNOS and all the features they support.
However if Cisco can go out and make servers, than I'm sure google could hire enough people to build a router.
So does it put little text ads into your TCP connections?
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
And if they did design their own, they could probably go to one of these companies and say 'we need 10,000 of these. If you fab them for us, you can keep the design and do whatever you want with it. Interested?'
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
PC Engines are another option.
Meh, the software catalog was always a bit limited. I mean, OK, they had Bonk's Adventure - but how does that measure up against the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Brothers, or Rockman?
Bow-ties are cool.
or will they ROUTE (sp?) cisco through and through...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Question related to IPv6 - is it a hardware requirement or a software requirement that is the issue right now? I recently bought a wireless router that I know can be flashed to DD-WRT (haven't done it yet). In the future could it be flashed to support IPv6?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
If the Google router is a core router, the effect on Juniper will be minimal: Google (and Verizon and...) likes the Juniper edge routers. I can understand Google considering its own core, but to dive into the edge business would be suicide.
Core routers seem glamorous but, while they are ludicrously quick, they get that speed (at least in part) by being dumber than dirt. Unlike edge routers, they don't have sophisticated authentication (RADIUS and the like), their DHCP support is primitive at best (and the world will still need IPv4 for some time to come), and the various governments are going to require some kind of CALEA facility or those pipes will get ripped right out of the ground. The list of technical hurdles for a new "edger" is really formidable. Oh yeah, don't forget the multitude of edge resident PSEUDO-protocols - really just hacks for some carrier's specific needs (example: a 5k byte DHCP renewal packet) and only minimally documented.
I cannot see Google duplicating all of the edge stuff ... at least, I think they're smarter than that. If otherwise, the stock to dump is Google's.
Why listen to rumors when you can just Google it ...
Why go bringing CISCO into this. Apart from creating products people want to use (gmail, search, etc..) google has two main focuses: building a back end able to efficiently run those applications and ensuring the consumer has easy access to those services.
Android and google's actions in the spectrum market weren't made just to fuck around with products outside their core competencies. They were strategic moves made to ensure that customers on mobile devices didn't end up directed away from google products by someone controlling the network or providing the handset.
Similarly google isn't about to start competing in the router market just for kicks. It's outside of their core competencies and the potential for profit simply wouldn't justify the resource expenditure.
Likely google is working on a custom router to help make their backend more efficient. To take an educated guess I would imagine that they want to build in intelligent load balancing into their routers. In other words have the routers maintain information about where certain kinds of data live and/or what machines are heavily loaded and then intelligently send requests for computations to lightly loaded nodes near the data. They might also want to simply build in custom handling of packets for things like GFS.
Not only will google not bother to compete in the router market but I suspect they won't even allow the technology they use for this to escape the company. After all most of the people who would benefit from this kind of optimization are their direct competitors.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
On the plus side, a substantial percentage of consumer-level routers support a convenient firmware upgrade. Doesn't change the fact that the stock firmware is junk; but does make it far less relevant.
I've often heard this referred to as the Wal-Mart effect. Once Wal-Mart distributes your product nationally, they basically own you. Because once you ramp up production to meet Wal-Mart needs, you can't just scale back down if they drop you... and they can and will drop you if you do not behave.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
TFA says that Juniper is doomed because Google is getting ready to switch to their own in-house brand of routers. I find this difficult to believe for several reasons. One is that even if Google is Juniper's biggest customer, one customer does not a demise make -- Juniper has many other customers...
Agreed. I worked in the routing industry and Juniper has plenty of loyal customers yet.
But there are far more practical reasons. Routers contain a lot of specialized hardware designed for rapid switching of packets.
I'm not as firm on this one. There are a number of generic switching hardware manufacturers out there with nice platforms upon which anyone can build a Linux or NetBSD device with a little work. Also, you can get a lot out of many smaller devices working as a mesh when you factor in the cost of a lot of little generic boxes. It would not be so hard to start with switches and then start replacing routing hardware heading towards the core routers, right up until you hit a place where the cost/performance no longer makes sense. I remember hearing Google already did this with switches internally.
Another question is how much sense it makes for Google to take this commercial or buy an existing commercial developer. How much do some of these companies cost right now compared to how much Google is shelling out regularly? We're not necessarily talking about Google starting from scratch, but given some of the scarily good OSS routing packages out there that is an option.
This one got tagged "googlefood", which I think is funny, but I feel compelled to mention that I dined on Google food for several months in the early part of this decade, when I was a temp at GOOG for 4 months. This was back when they had this guy named Charlie cooking for them. He used to be the personal chef for the Grateful Dead, and he was no slouch in the kitchen. Since GOOG gave you every meal for free in those days, and since I was making temp money, I took full advantage. Each and every meal was culinary adventure, in a good way. There was always something to delight everyone, and it was all delicious.
I understand that Charlie departed some time ago (in a private jet made of solid gold, no doubt), and GOOG in general just ain't what she used to be when they still had less than 1000 employees. It's probably still way better than working for HP or Sun, but still... there was a time when Googlefood really meant something!
Most consumer-level routers that use linux support IPv6 or can be upgraded to use it. Just try something that can run with ddwrt or openwrt for example.
And if they did design their own, they could probably go to one of these companies and say 'we need 10,000 of these. If you fab them for us, you can keep the design and do whatever you want with it. Interested?'
No one will make for them. Semis are not selling systems and to marketing those half-baked/asic chips is a nightmare.
one customer does not a demise make
Well, as someone working in the auto industry, I've seen first hand how this is not true. We have many suppliers that are in trouble simply because Ford or GM has scaled back their production so much. I work for an automaker that still is profitable.. but we're getting hit hard because of supplier closings.
For example, if Supplier X makes 1000 widgets per day, they have the employees, the equipment, and the building to do it efficiently and cost effectively. If,due to demand, you can only sell 400 widgets per day the overhead becomes so enormous you are no longer a competative business.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
As far as I know, yes it can be flashed. I believe that consumer hardware can be flashed to support ipv6. Unfortunately that is not enough since you need to include ipv6 support in all software that likes to use the internet. We still have a long way to go but consumergrade hardware with ipv6 support would be a good start.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Heck I wouldn't put it past Google to find a way to insert a ad into every TCP/IP packet that goes through their routers.
Watching a packet sniffer on a network with a google router would be like walking through a text based times square.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Linksys/Cisco 500 series. Retail $595, you can get them around the 380-450 price range. http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/solutions/small_business/products/routers_switches/500_series_secure_routers/index.html
IP is entirely at the software level (level 3 for you OSI folks out there). The only part that's really hardware is OSI level 1, which describes the physical medium (e.g. copper wire or radio waves).
This is old news and was announced almost two years ago http://www.google.com/tisp/
Anyone can develop a router. It's easy. Just put FreeBSD or NetBSD onto a platform and tune it the way you'd like it. Want to build a high end product? Add a little hardware acceleration (maybe some ASICs or a separate CPU to manage the Ethernet ports).
This is so old. As a former datacenter employee.
Yes it's happened. They've designed their own layer 3 switches, routers, etc.
Now get over it.
I can't believe nobody has made mention of Vyatta. It's an excellent appliance-like distro based on, I believe, Debian. All the bells and whistles you'd expect from a high-end device at a fraction (by which I mean ~1/3) of the cost relative to a Cisco purchase.
All management is handled via an IOS-like command mode which makes setup, backups, and everything else quite easy. Wire speed all the way.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
Not according to my contacts in the military... They state that the armed forces are dumping Cisco due to security issues (I inferred China from that) and move to Juniper equipment.
The lines between software and hardware are actually really blurry. Most NICs, for example, have hardware which assists in manipulating packets--anything from simply managing the checksums to VLAN tagging. Some cards even come with prioritization in the ASIC. Then you get highly programmable NICs which basically include an FPGA and a programming interface. With these, you can implement a somewhat arbitrary portion of the TCP/IP stack in the FPGA.
"But it's still softare!" you may cry. Well, maybe. But that's the point. The line between software and hardware is wide and blurry these days which, incidentally, is part of the reason why we have binary blogs for wireless drivers in the Linux kernel (they're basically firmware for the cards which the OS loads on boot.)
So saying "the software level" really just doesn't make sense. The layers in the OSI model don't distinguish between hardware and software--in fact, software isn't really mentioned except in layer 7 (the application layer.)
1) security issue
May be Google don't trust anymore their router vendor...
Routers aren't keys devices with foreign software inside ? ... isn't it a strategic place to snoop, spy and be the man in the middle ?
foreign software subject to bug and malicious feature
forget this idea, routers vendor are not evil :)
2) provider issue ...
If you are hardware provider. You have better to design a device that you can sell to several customers so you need to focus your feature for the needs of the mass.
So company, that have very specific feature request, that have people with engineering knowledge (there is a lot of brilliant people working at Google) will simply doing their own network device.
Their is now on the market chips like FPGA and networkprocessor (processor dedicate to network traffic) So all you need is to build your hardware with this chip of the shelf and write a piece of software
Ok it's not so easy. It was just to show you that the request things for a company like Google are not so huge to build this own routers and one project among hundreds
These days in definitely makes sense to byo router. Vyatta, as mentioned before, is certainly viable. Perhaps more so, would be OpenBSD's OpenBGP/OSPF project. Vyatta has one critical weakness in routing, they still use Zebra/Quagga as for its RDE. Quagga is notorious for bugs and instability. One might assume that Vyatta corrected a few of them but I am more likely to trust OpenBSD for that. OpenBSD will route RIP, OSPF, and BGP as well as some others. Check out the testimonials of the project's website where an ISP claimed to have 3 full BGP views at higher performance than a Cisco.
FYI, my Linksys, flashed with DD-WRT (an older version, from a few years ago, can't remember) is what provides my IPv6 connectivity at my house.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Completely Agree. This will be a research project for a very long time. I also highly doubt Juniper will be very worried by this, maybe even they are leading the charge..
I say this because, it's highly unlikely they are building a Carrier grade router. What experienced network engineer will say "Yeah, lets put one of those in our network core, because it has a shiney yellow face to it". I even bet when these guys rock around to Googles network engineers wanting to put it into the network, im pretty sure the response will be along the line "Not on my network you won't". There is a reason why Juniper owns the large scale Telco market. Reliability. Not just in hardware, but in software too. This is where Juniper is far superior to Cisco in the Carrier Market. This leads to the other reason why Google won't be entering the Carrier market is not only the need to develop ASIC's, but also a whole multitude of WAN interfaces such as ATM, POS, Serial, T1, T3, E1, E3, etc. Not just Ethernet. In addition to that, you need full range of MPLS support plus OSPF/ISIS with TE extensions and MP-BGPv4. This is no simple task. Added to all that, the Carrier market isn't really that big (well, where Juniper play that is. eg there are only 4,100 T-series Junipers deployed). The CE device market however is very big and quite simple to deploy features for and this is more likely where they will play, the Enterprise Routing market.
Its an easy play as you can bet on a pure ethernet based router and you don't need all that complicated MPLS+IGP/TE extensions and a range WAN interfaces. The key point about the enterprise market is this is where Cisco king. Juniper has been trying to break into this market with only limited success. I would suggest that Juniper working with Google to create a killer enterprise router can only mean bad things for Cisco.
Not only this, consider Cisco's recent push into the data centre with server's and software, I would bet this concept was probably originated by Juniper to partner with Google to take on Cisco. Cisco is creating many enemy's in the server, OS and SAN worlds. I would place bets Juniper found a partner worth challenging Cisco with. Especially given that Google is a very experienced Data Centre operator and many sysadmins would love to get their hands on Google's operating system, Apps and API's.
I for one welcome our JUNOS/GOOGLEOS overlords.
And nobody is suspicious for a second that the source is from a direct competitor of the company that currently delivers routers to Google?
Hello?
I hope the SEC gets notified of this.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Why would a rumour of a buyout drive the stock price down? Do all the investors go "oh my god a massive company with billions of dollars is going to want to buy my shares, I'd better get rid of them now for as little as possible!"?
Haha disregard that I suck cocks.
I just realised what rumour you were referring to. :(
Tomato is good, too. I found Tomato to be less buggy and more responsive and DD-WRT -- and believe me, I was fanatical about DD-WRT. I used it for years before trying Tomato.
I just wish Tomato would add IPv6 support so I can start playing with it before the upcoming IPocalypse.
128-bits of address space ought to be enough for anyone.
D. M.
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=56939
My sentiments exactly. If a Nexus 7000 (15 terabits per second) switch and an ASR-9000 (6.4 terabits per second) router aren't large enough to do Google's job, then they're ahead of the market and have special/specific needs.
They're building the space shuttle equivalent in transportation. While the rest of us are getting along fine with passenger jets.
Everyone here is complaining about support contract costs...Do you all expect Google to build the world's last router, requiring 0 support? To build a router at the caliber Google would need to hire far more salaried workers to continue support and R&D for the next solution. Routing is no longer some off the shelf commodity solution like there servers.
Move along...there servers are commodity hardware. Routing hardware is not a commodity. The Google way, "I walked to Fry's and purchased all of the FPGAs they had in stock to build this totally rad router"...Give me a break. Who thinks up this shit.
... is wide and blurry these days which, incidentally, is part of the reason why we have binary blogs for wireless drivers in the Linux kernel ...
To keep us updated on their experiences, and the traffic they're receiving? A disturbing thought...
Tomato is good, too
Did you try Potato? Its much cheaper. Lasts longer. And makes great chips!!
The keyword here is "from a few years ago". IPv6 has been broken in recent DD-WRT versions for years. The software tools are incomplete, some of them (such as radvd) may not run properly at all in the release builds, and there is no configuration interface. There is a tutorial, but it's largely outdated.
Some users users have been sticking with 23 SP2 for precisely this purpose. It's possible to run IPv6 with more recent DD-WRT versions, but in order to get it to run, you need a custom build (see also here) and/or some medium to major manual configuration juggling.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
aren't these specialized hw components available off the shelf of they can get it done from some foundry in Taiwan at cheap price if they want to . I think they will not be getting into this business but i don't think it will be for the reason you mentioned
somethings are best left unsaid , I am one of those things
I read all the comments, no one got the point.
First, Google already makes hardware. All their rack-mounted computers are customized to be quick to add and replace. Making a router is not a big jump.
Next: The router they make will probably have only rudimentary TCP/IP support. Data centers today are built with a bunch of Ethernet ports because Ethernet ports are cheaper per port than IP ports. (Physically the ports are the same fiber, it's the hardware behind them that's cheaper.)
Finally: Data centers are a completely different challenge than the internet. There are tons of academic papers on the subject already. Data centers are quite the opposite of the internet. Whereas the internet is a bunch of slow links with many hops, data centers have few hops and the slowest links are 10Gbps. Internet packets are usually at the MTU of ethernet, around 1500 bytes and usually closer to 300. Data centers are sending jumbo packets of 9000 bytes.
Not only can I imagine such a device. I imagine them offering it for free as long as they are able to track your Internet usage for each individual computer. (For creating "aggregate" data, of course.) Personally, I long for the day when I'm no longer served ads based on my husband's interest in football stats. I'm also sure he no longer wishes to receive ads based on my interest in Anime. ("Stay off my computer, you're messing up my Google Desktop feeds!")
Google already owns part of Meraki networks, the wifi auto-mesh people. Their gear is actually decent and priced nicely. Not much to replace the typical home systems but it's a start.
it's been in the hardware business for a while and expanded its presence with Android.
can someone clarify? i know Google has their search appliance, but as far as i know, it's just a cheap dell server, of a line intended to be used by other parties for rebranding: link. there's even a case study on google on that page. the google search appliance is google software running on dell hardware. android is software, running on htc hardware.
i think the real question is, whose hardware (cisco,/linksys, smc, hp procurve, foundry, f5, etc) will this google routing software run on? (or am i missing something?)
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
Excerpt: âoeLetâ(TM)s develop our own router,â he said. And much like when God said, âoeLet there be light,â there was a new router.
Read more here:
http://blog.xtego.com/2009/01/08/google-developing-its-own-router/
"You are currently using 160 Million (2%) of your 7282 Million available versions of IOS. Why not upgrade today!"
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Lolz0rz!
You are correct that one customer leaving is not ruinous. Too bad Verizon is the next on the list to leave Juniper. They're building their own routers now, too.
Can you say Walmart, I think you can =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Steve Yegge (Google employee) hinted about this in June 2007. (He said he had to write a new parser for it.) Look at point number 5 here: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rich-programmer-food.html
Ah, the vendor of the subject has IPv6 support on all their routers including J-Series and SSG's. Even the small Netscreen 5GT's support IPv6
As pointed out, you can get IPv6 Routers using DD-WRT or buy a $300 router. I did say "no consumer-level routers available". The average joe isn't going to shell out a bunch of money, or spend time flashing their router with DD-WRT. If IPv6 is really going to take off, we need a huge initiative with the ISP's and big manufacturers like Cisco and Netgear to bring IPv6 to the consumer level. The closest we've come is Apple's new Airport hub offers IPv6 support; however it isn't very publicized, and the configuration still needs some work.
google.slashdot