North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: remember the "diameter of the internet"?
>> When ANY router becomes as reliable as a dumb TDM device, then maybe >> we can begin collapsing the POP topology. However, the very >nature of >> the Internet almost prevents this reliability from being achieved >> (having a shared control and data plane seems to be the primary >> culprit). > >Uhm. Actually, control & data planes are rather separate >inside modern routers. What is flaky is router software. >That's what you get when your router vendor sells you 1001 way >of screwing up your routing :) Router hardware can be pretty flaky as well... ;) I was more referring to the nature of IP. With the exception of IS-IS, all IP control plane protocols are subject to abuse/attack by the same data plane that they are intending to control. > >> There are routers out there today that can single-handedly replace >> entire POPs at a fraction of the rack, power, and operational cost. >> Hasn't happened, tho. > >I know two boxes like that - one is broken-as-designed, with copper >distributed fabric; another (courtesy of VCs who managed to >lose nearly >entire engineering team mid-way but hired a bunch of marketers >long before >there was anything to ship) is still in beta. Ouch. >> I don't like wasting ports for redundant n^2 or log(n^2) >interconnect >> either, but router and reliability mix like oil and water... > >Actually, not. A router is a hell of a lot simpler than a >Class-5 switch, >particularly if you don't do ATM, FR, X.25, MPLS, QoS, >multicast, IPv6, >blah, blah, blah. There are opponents to this assertion. I haven't seen enough of what's in the sausage to make a firm statement either way. What I do know is that the class-5 switch is designed to save lives. A router is designed to fill vendor wallets. That, coupled with experience in the field suggests, coupled with dogma and the high-level of sensitivty to being burned repeatedly, suggests that the trend for chassis redundancy requiring massive amounts of wasted space, unnecessary hierarchy, and added complexity to continue. Ces't la Vie! >Demonstrably (proof by existence), those switches can be made >reasonably reliable. So can be routers. It's the fabled >computer tech culture of "be crappy, ship fast, pile features >sky high, test after you ship" aka OFRV's Micro$oft envy, >which is the root evil. Yep! -chris > >--vadim >
|