-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 9/4/07 3:03 PM, Michael Gale wrote: > Hey, > > It was suggested that we create an OpenBSD server with 9GB > interfaces to start.
I think here you mean 9 1-Gbit/s interfaces 7 Will be used right off the bat. > > This would function as a core router brining 7 GB networks together on > the inside of a main firewall. I suggested that maybe we would have some > bandwidth issues with trying to push that much traffic through a single > server. RFCs 2544 and 2889 define router and switch test methodologies. A related document, RFC 1242, defines "throughput" as the maximum zero-loss rate. Note that throughput is a single rate. Ergo, there's no such thing as "max" or "min" or any other kind of throughput. There's just throughput. > Can any one comment on this ? Would it not be better to use some think > like a Cisco layer 3 GB switch. Most el cheapo gig switches will do the job without packet loss. Manageability, routing, an sshd server, redundant power, support, etc., cost extra. Commercial switches achieved line-rate, zero-loss performance around a decade ago, with small-frame latency and jitter in the tens of microseconds. These use ASICs or FPGAs or NPs to get there. Big studly servers equipped with 10G interfaces currently achieve goodput somewhere north of 1G but south of 10G with higher latency and jitter than switches. I'm not aware of anyone getting loss-free performance at N-Gbit/s (where N > 7) using server hardware alone. dn iD8DBQFG3eCTyPxGVjntI4IRAqu8AKDotF/6ReuA+V/L2Z6Ng7f8tbCpQgCg1YR4 4g+vFsK6cmph88YQGnrXl54= =0N3R -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
