image stream routers

Sun Sep 18 01:29:52 UTC 2005

Dan Hollis wrote:
>> right.  what i'm pointing out is that if Imagestream routers really 
>> ARE capable of >OC12 (and perhaps multiple of them) then its unlikely 
>> its s/w-based forwarding.
> 
> doesnt mean they are violating GPL to do it. look at nvidia for example.

agree.  all i'm saying is that it is "unlikely".

OC12 at minimum-packet-size is a little over 3.2M PPS unidirectional 
traffic.  bidirectional its 6.4M PPS.

it is very unlikely that a non-modified linux kernel can do anywhere 
near that.  its also incredibly unlikely that even a modified kernel 
could do that.

the only possible scenario where i can see unmodified linux doing that 
is if you used "Fast Routing" which essentially is DMAing from one NIC 
to another, removing any ability to do any fancy queueing, no ability to 
do ACLs or any form of traffic accounting.

in terms of 'router characterization', i doubt most folks would want 
such a thing on either a core-router, peering-router, transit-router or 
aggregation router.

so: i'd say its far more likely that its h/w-based forwarding, perhaps 
FPGA-based.

cheers,

lincoln.