Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 14:23:26 -0700 From: Andrew McRae <amcrae@cisco.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Routers and FreeBSD (let's have a bakeoff) Message-ID: <199605252123.OAA09917@doberman.cisco.com>
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Dennis, perhaps we'd all better calm down and stop the Usenet pattern of degenerating the discussion into name-calling... ;-) Let's not let the heat outweigh the light.. >we are, thanks. I think your data is a tad old...'286 with PC-route, >c'mon now! Just for fun, a '486 with 2 pci ethernets and a dual t1 >card can handle full 10Mbs on both ethernets and >full-duplex full T1 on the serial port simulatanously. Pretty >snazzy, dont you think? PC cost, less than $1400. I presented the old 286 as something I had done, not as a prime example of current technology :-) I certainly agree that PC technology can do the job of a small router; I have done that myself with other Unix workstations, as well as FreeBSD machines. I have strived to always follow the John Mashey rule of claims - always back up what you say with actual, observed evidence, and always disclose the parameters of the test. I don't doubt that your quoted configuration works in real life, but it depends on what you call `handle'. Give me a observed pps on each interface, using mimimum sized packets. Ethernet can run around 13 or 14 Kpps, and a full duplex T1 will run around 7200 pps. The industry accepted minimum sized packet is 64 byte ether, 52 bytes serial (ether - mac header + serial encap). Can a PC really handle a total of 7200 + 14K + 14K = 35200 pps? I don't know - it's actually something I can test really easily, and it would be an interesting exercise for you to send me a sample config and then I can have a bakeoff in the lab. BTW this kind of config is very low end. I am much more interested if you put a couple of Fast Ethernets in and then run a 45 Mbit T3. *That's* a serious configuration :-) If people are interested, I will publish the results. Again, full disclosure of the environment is important. >If you're really the hardware guru you say then you know how a >25XX dual ethernet fares in this test........ Well, Dennis, let's not start getting personal.. I never claimed to be a hardware guru, and I certainly am not going to start now. I also know little about 2500's. The big iron is what I do and am interested in. I consider the access stuff fairly dinky :-) Let state *again* for the record - in the access arena, I have no doubt that intermingled among the ciscos, Ascends, Annexes, Bays and myriad other vendors, BSDi and FreeBSD PCs can stand their own, and even be a *better* platform in some cases; perhaps cisco should put together a platform like this as a low end small ISP box, and put some of it's IOS protocol handling in it, kind of like what we're doing with Microsoft's NT. >>I don't understand this argument; are you saying that 30 PCs >>will do the same job as a 7513? How? And weren't we talking about >>core routers? What's a 2500 got to do with it? I thought you never >>claimed that PCs were good candidates for backbone routers? Just >>what *are* you saying? > >you're the one that said that "PCs cant replace routers". Is a 25xx not >a router? Your definition of a router changes from paragraph to >paragraph. Maybe thats the problem. Well, I did say `core router'. I never said that PCs can't replace routers; I have done that myself. Just be careful when you start comparing PCs to the serious routers; that's a different scale of things. Again, I'll say: use the right tool for the job. Routers are like computers - there is a wide spectrum in terms of price and performance. >Dennis Andrew McRae (*really* starting to wonder why I bothered with this thread)
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