BGP tables, PC hardware, et al.

Fri Sep 28 21:15:50 UTC 2001

>From my (operational) experience:

CPU load to import a full table from ground zero, on router hardware: 100%
     ""       ""           ""          ""       , on server hardware: <2%

Main problem with using server hardware (and I am not talking about a Linux
box on a Taiwanese manufacturer, here; I'm talking hardware considered by
the majority of successful businesses to be stable enough to support their
core applications): Lack of stable and useable routing software.

Zebra: OSPF is twitchy, BGP is either great or takes > 1 hour to converge
a full table, with no clear reason why, and it does not support anything
but Linux/Intel sanely, yet.

GateD public: No reflector code. End of story.

GateD private: Segfaults & other fun games, unresponsive support, closed
code.

MRTD: (As far as I can tell) requires injection of full routing table into
kernel routes for base OS, no sane way to turn this off, support for
non-BGP protocols is spotty at best.

Anyone able to significantly disprove one of the above, or provide another
package that does not have the problems, would have my deep and abiding
gratitude, because this issue is rather active in my current work-life.
-- 
***************************************************************************
Joel Baker                           System Administrator - lightbearer.com
lucifer at lightbearer.com              http://users.lightbearer.com/lucifer/