router lifetime

Sun Oct 3 05:01:00 UTC 2010

On Sat, 2 Oct 2010, Franck Martin wrote:

> How long do you keep a router in production?
>
> What is your cycle for replacement of equipment?
>
> For a PC, you usually depreciate it over 3 years, and can make it last 5 years, but then you are stretching the functionality, especially if you upgrade the OS, tho it is not uncommon to see companies still on XP and IE6.
>
> I'm wondering what is the rule of thumb for routing hardware? Same shelf life as a PC or you keep the hardware much longer?

Short answer: 8 years

Long answer: we are an academic network and when we upgrade the routers we 
buy top of the line routers with speeds far in excess of what we need 
then.  If and when we need to upgrade, we usually pull out the main card 
and upgrade to the latest processor.  We never buy a router with just 2x 
the horse power and slots we need.  When we buy we buy with 10-15x the 
horsepower we need.

-Hank