[48860] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: remember the "diameter of the internet"?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Sprunk)
Tue Jun 18 19:59:52 2002
From: "Stephen Sprunk" <ssprunk@cisco.com>
To: "Vadim Antonov" <avg@exigengroup.com>,
"Martin, Christian" <cmartin@gnilink.net>
Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 18:59:06 -0500
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
Thus spake "Vadim Antonov" <avg@exigengroup.com>
> Actually, not. A router is a hell of a lot simpler than a Class-5
> switch, particularly if you don't do ATM, FR, X.25, MPLS,
> QoS, multicast, IPv6, blah, blah, blah.
The data plane is remarkably easier. The control plane is arguable. And
without ATM, FR, MPLS, QOS, multicast, etc. nobody will be buying your router.
> Demonstrably (proof by existence), those switches can be
> made reasonably reliable. So can be routers. It's the fabled
> computer tech culture of "be crappy, ship fast, pile features
> sky high, test after you ship" aka OFRV's Micro$oft envy,
> which is the root evil.
The question is actually whether anyone would pay the cost of a perfect router.
People complain that today's routers are too expensive, and most vendors are
going bankrupt or giving up. Many of those were marketing to the "featureless
and reliable" niche.
S
