[130433] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: router lifetime
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Hank Nussbacher)
Sun Oct 3 01:01:23 2010
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 07:01:00 +0200 (IST)
From: Hank Nussbacher <hank@efes.iucc.ac.il>
To: Franck Martin <franck@genius.com>
In-Reply-To: <26584318.604.1286061791081.JavaMail.franck@franck-martins-macbook-pro.local>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Sat, 2 Oct 2010, Franck Martin wrote:
> How long do you keep a router in production?
>
> What is your cycle for replacement of equipment?
>
> For a PC, you usually depreciate it over 3 years, and can make it last 5 years, but then you are stretching the functionality, especially if you upgrade the OS, tho it is not uncommon to see companies still on XP and IE6.
>
> I'm wondering what is the rule of thumb for routing hardware? Same shelf life as a PC or you keep the hardware much longer?
Short answer: 8 years
Long answer: we are an academic network and when we upgrade the routers we
buy top of the line routers with speeds far in excess of what we need
then. If and when we need to upgrade, we usually pull out the main card
and upgrade to the latest processor. We never buy a router with just 2x
the horse power and slots we need. When we buy we buy with 10-15x the
horsepower we need.
-Hank
