estimation of number of DFZ IPv4 routes at peak in the future

Jeff Wheeler jsw at inconcepts.biz
Sun Mar 13 18:11:34 UTC 2011


On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 1:27 PM, Christopher Morrow
<morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> there's probably a different need in TOR and BO/SOHO locations than
> core devices, eh?

In today's backbone, this is certainly true.  Feature-driven upgrades
shouldn't be much of a factor for "P boxes" today, because modern
networks have the option of simply label-switching in the core (just
like 1990s networks could ATM/Frame-switch) without doing much of
anything else.  Feature-driven upgrades should be largely confined to
"PE boxes."

For the same reason, upgrading a P box should be easy, not hard.
After all, it's just label-switching.  In today's backbones, it should
be more practical than ever to buy the most cost-effective box needed
for now and the predictable near-term.  Cost per gigabit continues to
fall.  Buying dramatically more capacity than is planned to be
necessary sinks capital dollars into a box that does nothing but
depreciate.

I realize that organizationally-painful budgeting and purchasing
processes often drive networks to buy the biggest thing available.
Vendors understand this, too: they love to sell you a much bigger box
than you need just because upgrading is hard to get approved so you
don't want to do it any more frequently than necessary, even when that
behavior is detrimental to cash-flow and bottom line.  The more broken
your organization, the more you need to spend extra money on "too big"
boxes.  Sounds pretty self-defeating, doesn't it?

-- 
Jeff S Wheeler <jsw at inconcepts.biz>
Sr Network Operator  /  Innovative Network Concepts




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