[127879] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Vyatta as a BRAS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tim Durack)
Sun Jul 18 21:08:17 2010
In-Reply-To: <20100719000156.GA1312@panix.com>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:07:36 -0400
From: Tim Durack <tdurack@gmail.com>
To: Brett Frankenberger <rbf+nanog@panix.com>
Cc: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 8:01 PM, Brett Frankenberger
<rbf+nanog@panix.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 07:13:46AM +0930, Mark Smith wrote:
>>
>> This document supports that. If the definition of a software router is
>> one that doesn't have a fixed at the factory forwarding function, then
>> the ASR1K is one.
>
> The code running in the ASICs on line cards in 6500-series
> chassis isn't fixed at the factory. =A0Same with the code running on the
> PFCs in those boxes. =A0There's not a tremendous amount of flexibility to
> make changes after the fact, because the code is so tightly integrated
> with the hardware, but there is some.
>
> (Not saying the 6500 is a software-based platform. =A0It's pretty clearly
> a hardware-based platform under most peoples' definition. =A0But: =A0the
> line is blurry.)
>
> =A0 =A0 -- Brett
>
>
Surely the important point for most forwarding engines is that there
is isolation between control, management and forwarding planes?
If I'm looking for a box, I want line rate forwarding on all
interfaces. I want stateless ACLs and policing functions on the
forwarding plane. I want to use those functions to protect the control
and management planes. I want the control plane to cope with the
required amount of forwarding state and churn. I want the management
plane to be somewhat as capable as the Linux tools I run to maintain
the network.
I don't honestly care whether it is a single cpu, multi-core
multi-cpu, ASIC or NPU.
That being said, for the networks I help maintain, the C6K meets most
of those requirements. I think the N7K is movement in the right
direction. I consider both to be L2/L3 switches :-)
--=20
Tim:>
