OT: ISPs: Linux's role nowadays

[Tom H]

> Servers don't really make good routers.  When you are talking about
> traditional low- to mid-speed telco circuits (T1, T3), there have never
> been good, well-supported, cost-effective solutions for connecting those
> directly to Linux systems for routing that could compete with a basic
> Juniper or Cisco (or Adtran or ...) on price and ease of use.
>
> When you start talking about SONET links (OC-3 and up), Linux AFAIK
> doesn't handle things like protected paths and the like, and then you
> also quickly pass the performance capability of commodity hardware.
> Newer WAN circuits are using Ethernet, but you need OAM (which Linux
> doesn't support) to properly manage them as a replacement for
> traditional telco circuits.
>
> "Real" routers (aka Juniper and Cisco) use hardware-based forwarding
> that can run at line rate for 1G, 10G, and 100G interfaces.
>
> Dynamic routing has always been pretty weak in Linux as well.  I have a
> few systems running Quagga for various purposes, but it is not nearly as
> powerful and flexible as a "traditional" router.
>
> Now, Juniper routers all run FreeBSD, but that's only on the routing
> engine (where the management and routing daemons run), not the
> forwarding engine (where the actual packet forwarding takes place).
> Juniper wrote all their own routing, PPP management, etc. daemons from
> scratch.  It is kind of funny when you spend $100K+ on a router that has
> a Celeron 850 CPU and a whopping 20G hard drive. :-)
>
> I have lots of Linux servers, a few other old Unix servers, and a couple
> of Linux firewalls, but all my routers are Juniper.  I've been working
> for small ISPs for 14 years, and I've never really seen a time where I
> would try to push Linux into serious routing.  It costs too much on the
> low end and can't handle the performance on the high end.

How about Vyatta? They are Linux-based and claim to have the same
performance as Cisco routers. They started out as software-only but
seem to be pushing "appliances" more and more, like
http://www.vyatta.com/downloads/datasheets/vyatta_3500_datasheet.pdf

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