Vyatta as a BRAS

Per Carlson pelle at hemmop.com
Wed Jul 14 20:16:11 UTC 2010


> Is the CRS-1 hardware or software?
> Lots of custom hardware in there - but lots of processing cores that look
> suspiciously like software engines too.

It might well be software engines in there, but that's not the point
here. The linecards (MSC/PLIM etc.) in a CRS is designed to handle
wirerate traffic *of any packet length* and simultaneously do ACLs,
QoS or whatever else you throw at them. If that is done using FPGAs,
CPUs or trained monkeys isn't really that interesting, as long as it
works. And it does. But it won't come for free.

A software-based router, i.e something equipped with a central CPU
doing all heavy lifting, of *any kind* isn't designed to do that.

The old corollary 7a in RFC1925 still make sense: "Good, Fast, Cheap:
Pick any two (you can't have all three)."

Some of the arguments expressed also vaguely resembles truth 11 in the
same RFC:
Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and a
different presentation, regardless of whether it works.

There is a reason internet isn't built on Dell hardware...

-- 
Pelle

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
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