OT: ISPs: Linux's role nowadays

[Jake Peavy]

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 11:41 AM, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 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
>
>
According to this recent post on LinuxDevices, there's also a commercial
Linux middleware called ZebOS  which performs carrier-grade routing:

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/IP-Infusion-ZebOS-78/

-- 
-jp

I bet for an Indian, shooting an old fat pioneer woman in the back with an
arrow, and she fires her shotgun into the ground as she falls over, is like
the top thing you can do.

deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com
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