PacketShader

Mon Aug 23 09:59:43 UTC 2010

On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 22:23:19 -1000, Michael Painter said:
> Researchers in South Korea have built a networking router that transmits data
> at record speeds from components found in most high-end desktop computers
>  http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/26096/?nlid=3423

Two great quotes from the article:

"That isn't fast enough to take advantage of the full speed of a typical
network card, which operates at 10 gigabytes per second."

Anybody got a network of PCs that have cards that run at 10GBytes/sec? ;)

For that matter, have enough 10Gbit network cards shipped that they are now
considered "typical" (as in "more than 5%")?  A Lamborghini costs about 10
times as much as a nice Camry.  10Gig cards are closer to 30-50 times as much as
1gig cards.  Now, if Lambos aren't typical cars, are 10Gig cards typical?  Just
sayin'....

"Lash enough software routers together that run at 40 gigabytes per second, and
you get what is essentially a single-terabit router. Using such a system,
routers might some day run completely in software."

Ahh.. but the lashing is the tricky part that costs the big bucks, as these
guys will undoubtedly discover - life will get a lot more complicated once they
saturate the first PCI backplane and need a second. Who wants to bet they'll
end up re-inventing SGI's NUMAlink or similar interconnect? ;)

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