Routers vs. PC's for routing - was list problems?

Thu May 23 20:17:16 UTC 2002

> I agree with you on that. Hot swapability for various interfaces is
> something routers obviously have over PC's.

Hot swap PCI is old news.

> True... unless going for 64 bit PCI at 66MHz... still it's obvious that
> routers are designed for one simple purpose and generally have larger
> backplanes to handle that.

However, $ for $, even when buying used cisco gear at 80% off from
dot-booms, a PC router will outperform any traditional router.

> I agree a router is probably more efficient in just routing packets, but in
> complex filtering or traffic manipulation/packet sniffing, a PC might have
> the edge. :)

Yes, ipfw/dummy is very very cool. Like, inducing a few 100 msecs of
latency to folks who don't pay on time :)

-- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex at nac.net, latency, Al Reuben --
--    Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net   --