Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:05:15 -0500 From: Jim Thompson <jim@netgate.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: death of the Internet predicted. Film at 11. Message-ID: <CA7C5596-C06A-426A-8087-57E040E08E4E@netgate.com>
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bzs wants to talk mainframes=E2=80=A6 meh. How about some networking = rant for dinner? Today someone announced some more IPv4 routes on the Internet. Nothing = new really, but this meant the global routing table has exceeded 500k = entries (501,525 as we speak). This has caused a lot of popular Cisco router models to go tits up = because their default value for the IPv4 table size is 512k which in = this case was not enough to hold the global table. Theoretically the table should hold up to 512k entries, but the memory = is not exclusively used for it, some of it goes to IPv6, some to = maintaining various sessions, MPLS etc, so it crapped out at around 500k.=20 As discussed on NANOG from a few months ago: http://markmail.org/message/n32fmeb2dmtnbsff Now, 512K routes isn't necessarily a hardware limitation, it's the = default TCAM allocation for IPv4 in a Cisco. = http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-6500-series-sw= itches/116132-problem-catalyst6500-00.html But... don=E2=80=99t reload your Cisco... http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/memory.html Talk about "damned if you do, and damned if you don=E2=80=99t." I find the economics of the routing table to be fascinating. When = someone announces a route, it makes use of a constrained (and often = expensive, TCAM-based) resource on routers all over the world. This totals to, by some measures, $6200/route/year.: = http://bill.herrin.us/network/bgpcost.html Now boys & girls, $6,200 * 501,525 is $3,109,455,000/year, and growing. =20= But back to reboots. Despite the above, woe be to anyone who tries to = get Cisco to replace their grey-market way-beyond-deprecated = almost-definitely-not-covered-by-SmartNet Sup720 linecards in 2014. It's very odd that "grey market" equipment is considered the standard = way to refer to genuine Cisco equipment when sold by a company other = than a Cisco partner. I understand keeping out counterfeits, but given the first-sale = doctrine, how is a resold piece of equipment anything other than = completely legitimate? If you think about it, and get past the "it's just industry standard" = mentality, it=E2=80=99s a bit insane that Cisco uses (and gets away = with) these pseudo-monopoly tactics. In the old days, (say with maintenance on IBM Selectric typewriters), = such schemes were called "bundling" and "tying," and the DOJ would = pursue the companies for anti-trust violations. But that was yesterday. Today the DOJ arrests people based upon = nebulous complaints from Cisco's general counsel. See e.g. = http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/sue-a-giant-corporation-get-rewarded-with-a= udacious-criminal-charges/#more-84911 wherein a British citizen was arrested in Canada for starting a company = that competed with Cisco maintenance. The Canadian court quashed the request for extradition after the DOJ's = request trapped him in a foreign country for years. Today, he remains = under indictment in the US, despite the Canadian judge stating that the = DOJ's case was a fairly transparent copy of Cisco's civil suit. The = ruling was incendiary, stating that "The extradition process to bring = the applicant before United States Courts=E2=80=A6 involved innuendo, = half truths and complete falsehoods." The judge concluded: "The only reasonable inference I can draw from the facts is that the = criminal process was used to pressure (unsuccessfully) the applicant = into abandoning his antitrust suit against Cisco=E2=80=A6. Any = well-informed person acquainted with the truth would conclude that the = collective result of the mistreatment of Mr. Adekeye offended = fundamental notions of justice." Are all Cisco execs fugly and unethical? http://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-exec-vows-to-hunt-down-leak-2012-11 Jim
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