Re: switch or server? (was Re: Max throughput ?)
* David Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007-09-05 00:59]: 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. you are beeing tricked by marketing terminology. layer 3 switches are routers. vendors use the term to.. well I dunno :) most so-called layer3 swicthes are regular layer 2 switches with a little extra logic to be able to inspect IP headers and take the switching (it is routing of course) decision based on that. Rule of thumb: they all suck. -- Henning Brauer, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] BS Web Services, http://bsws.de Full-Service ISP - Secure Hosting, Mail and DNS Services Dedicated Servers, Rootservers, Application Hosting - Hamburg Amsterdam
Re: switch or server? (was Re: Max throughput ?)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 9/5/07 2:01 AM, Henning Brauer wrote: * David Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007-09-05 00:59]: 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. you are beeing tricked by marketing terminology. layer 3 switches are routers. vendors use the term to.. well I dunno :) most so-called layer3 swicthes are regular layer 2 switches with a little extra logic to be able to inspect IP headers and take the switching (it is routing of course) decision based on that. Rule of thumb: they all suck. That's a statement of value, not of fact. The OP asked about switch throughput. Even the el cheapo ones you describe as sucky can forward packets at line rate with zero loss. They have many other problems -- execrable routing code, CLIs and GUIs written by idiots, and horrible hashing algorithms, to name a few -- but basic packet forwarding isn't one of them. That said, I share your allergy to the term layer-3 switch. I don't use this meaningless marketing term. Switches switch; routers route. dn iD8DBQFG3swDyPxGVjntI4IRAkqkAJ93LmSLnpTft6j/sOZ/0bbdeBuSdQCfWENS gEH1SSQe1g0dxOaYp/+p+68= =loeJ -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: switch or server? (was Re: Max throughput ?)
* David Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007-09-05 17:51]: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 9/5/07 2:01 AM, Henning Brauer wrote: * David Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007-09-05 00:59]: 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. you are beeing tricked by marketing terminology. layer 3 switches are routers. vendors use the term to.. well I dunno :) most so-called layer3 swicthes are regular layer 2 switches with a little extra logic to be able to inspect IP headers and take the switching (it is routing of course) decision based on that. Rule of thumb: they all suck. That's a statement of value, not of fact. The OP asked about switch throughput. Even the el cheapo ones you describe as sucky can forward packets at line rate with zero loss. switch, aka layer 2, yes. route, aka layer 3, no. not even under perfect conditions in case of teh small ones. -- Henning Brauer, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] BS Web Services, http://bsws.de Full-Service ISP - Secure Hosting, Mail and DNS Services Dedicated Servers, Rootservers, Application Hosting - Hamburg Amsterdam
switch or server? (was Re: Max throughput ?)
-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-
