PC Routers (was Re: /24s run amuck)

Richard A Steenbergen ras at e-gerbil.net
Thu Jan 15 02:43:17 UTC 2004


On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 08:06:50PM -0500, haesu at towardex.com wrote:
> 
> > ... and we care because? the router is a black box. if the output is not
> > what is expected, it matters not why. though understandable, it is still not
> > acceptable. </imho>
> 
> and you blame zebra ?

There are so many many many legitimate things to blame Zebra for, and so
many more legitimate things to blame Linux for, that when you put the two
of them together there is no need to make up problems that aren't their 
fault.

The reasons that PC routers bite have nothing to do with the fact that
they use PC hardware, the limitations of the PCI bus, or any other
nonsense like that. PC routers bite because of the software, pure and
simple. Raw forwarding performance is only a small component of a quality
router, the rest is SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE, and MORE SOFTWARE. Unfortunately, 
software quality isn't easy to measure in numbers other than units sold.

On the topic of PC routers, I've fully given in to the zen of Randy Bush. 
I FULLY encourage my competitor to use them. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)



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