gigabit router (was Re: Getting a "portable" /19 or /20)

Wed Apr 11 03:24:17 UTC 2001

> Dual/Quad 1Ghz PIIIs, anyone?

For routers, single fast CPU's, fast ram and fast PCI buses
work wonders, hence my liking the Alpha processor systems. 
Mostly because of a really good PCI bus. On other lists
the discussions get real technical as to why, and a dual 800+
system is fast enough it does not matter... but unless the code
(Zebra/Gated/Routed) is designed to use multi-processors, 
it does not help the router deamon. It will free up resources
for other tasks.

In playing around I summarize the differences as:

*nix boxen routers: Decent Hardware, Great OS, more than
enough CPU/RAM cheap to make up for differences in most cases.

Purpose built systems: GREAT hardware, Minimal OS tuned for the
application at hand (routing).

Funny thing is, I am typing this on a roof, using a 200mhz Linux
boxen with 2 nics used for wireless network routing... using SSH
and Xwindows while it routes packets for 2.4ghz DSSS and some 23ghz
(10mbps fdx) analog traffic. It's a great night to be babysitting the 
network... 

I think as hardware and software evolve over time, all of these
arguments will fade into volatile ram. 