[149068] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: 10GE TOR port buffers (was Re: 10G switch recommendaton)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (bas)
Fri Jan 27 18:31:22 2012
In-Reply-To: <20120127230349.GA31350@ussenterprise.ufp.org>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:30:35 +0100
From: bas <kilobit@gmail.com>
To: bas <kilobit@gmail.com>, Saku Ytti <saku@ytti.fi>, nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Hi,
> The margin on a top-of-rack switch is very low. =A048 port gige with
> 10GE uplinks are basically commodity boxes, with plenty of competition.
> Saving $100 on the bill of materials by cutting out some buffer
> makes the box more competitive when it's at a $2k price point.
The list of 10GE TOR switches I sent earlier are list from $20K to $100K
So actual purchase cost for us would be $10K to $30K
$500 for some (S)(Q)(bla)RAM shouldn't hold back a vendor from
releasing a bitchin switch....
Again this argument does not explain why there are 1GE aggregation
switches with deep buffers..
> Also, as was pointed out to me privately, it is also important to loook
> at adaptive queue management features. =A0The most famous is WRED, but
> there are other choices. =A0Having a queue management solution on your
> routers and switches that works in concert with the congestion control
> mechanism used by the end stations always results in better goodput.
> Many of the low end switches have limited or no AQM choices, while the
> higher end switches with fancier ASICs can default to something like
> WRED. =A0Be sure it is the deeper buffers that are making the difference,
> and not simply some queue management.
All true... Still no reason why not to offer a deep buffer TOR...
