The Making of a Router

Fri Dec 27 13:11:16 UTC 2013

On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Baldur Norddahl
<baldur.norddahl at gmail.com>wrote:

> On the topic of building a software router for an ISP, has anyone tried it
> using OpenFlow? The idea is to have a Linux server run BGP and a hardware
> switch to move the packets. The switch would be programmed by the Linux
> server using the OpenFlow protocol.
>
> I am looking at the HP 5400 zl switches as the hardware platform and
> RouteFlow https://sites.google.com/site/routeflow/ to program the BGP
> rules.
>
> One issue is that the HP switch will only allow a limited amount of rules
> to be processed in hardware (about 4096 rules I believe). Will this be
> enough to cover most of the traffic of a FTTH ISP on the fast path?
>

You want to use the switch for what ? To connect last-mile customers ? For
L3 aggregation ? You want to run the switch as an edge router with limited
BGP ? What's the exact use case you are thinking about ?

Eugeniu