On Friday 29 February 2008, andrew colin wrote: > This "superiority" of Cisco /juniper on scaling may > actually be a myth, are there any benchmarks you have > come across ?
Want to try running 5x 40Gbps (OC-768/STM-256) links at line rate on a PC, or a Juniper/Cisco :-)? Scaling isn't only about speed. There are various other factors that come into play when being the custodian of such a large amount of traffic. Moreover, PC-based routers are similar to software routers. They are not distributed in nature, i.e., the control plane (housekeeping land) and forwarding plane (user traffic land) are managed by the same micro-processors. Routers like the 7200-VXR Cisco and below are in this category, and is why the scalability of these platforms is typically governed by how much CPU is used/unused, as all route look-ups, packet switching, packet buffering, e.t.c., is performed in software. At these kinds of speeds, I'm more comfortable with purpose-built platforms, which are distributed in nature, and employ ASIC's, programmable chips, or a combination of both, to offer line rate and support for advanced features when scaling up. Take a look at: http://tinyurl.com/36om88 for a brief analysis into software routers based on high end PC hardware. Mark.
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