[112118] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: real hardware router VS linux router
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David E. Smith)
Thu Feb 19 10:42:49 2009
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:43:06 -0600
From: "David E. Smith" <dave@mvn.net>
To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <499D6E99.1090706@uiuc.edu>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
Ryan Harden wrote:
> While you could probably build a linux router that is just as fast as a
> real hardware router, you're always going to run into the moving pieces
> part of the equation.
>
> In almost all scenarios, moving parts are more prone to failure than
> non-moving parts.
>
It's quite possible to build Linux-based devices with few or no moving
parts. Small embedded boards, and flash drives, are common and cheap;
and for low-load situations it's possible to build a passively-cooled
(i.e. no fans, so zero moving parts) system.
Higher-performance setups with a few moving parts (mainly fans) are
still possible, but at some point you have to balance the time and
effort of R&D and performance-tuning your system. If you save a few
thousand dollars on hardware, but spend a few days tweaking everything,
you may not come out ahead after all.
At least two vendors (Imagestream and Mikrotik) offer complete packages
based on Linux; the latter also sells the software separately, for
installation on your own hardware, and both offer support if you need it.
David Smith
MVN.net
