Routers in Data Centers

Fri Sep 24 17:08:23 UTC 2010

On Sep 24, 2010, at 6:22 AM, Venkatesh Sriram wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Can somebody educate me on (or pass some pointers) what differentiates
> a router operating and optimized for data centers versus, say a router
> work in the metro ethernet space? What is it thats required for
> routers operating in data centers? High throughput, what else?

While this question has many dimensions and there is no real  
definition of either I suspect that what many people mean when they  
talk about a DC routers is:
Primarily Ethernet interfaces
High port density
Designed to deal with things like VRRP / VLAN / ethernet type features.
Possibly CAM based, possibly smaller buffers.
Less likely to be taking full routes.

This is very similar to the religious debate about "What's the  
difference between a 'real' router and a L3 switch?"

Just my 2 cents.
W

>
> Thanks, Venkatesh
>

--
Consider orang-utans.
In all the worlds graced by their presence, it is suspected that they  
can talk but choose not to do so in case humans put them to work,  
possibly in the television industry. In fact they can talk. It's just  
that they talk in Orang-utan. Humans are only capable of listening in  
Bewilderment.
-- Terry Practhett