North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: [nanog]software routers
On Sun, 22 Sep 2002, Koji Hino wrote: > From: Vadim Antonov <[email protected]> > Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 03:06:56 -0700 (PDT) > :> The CPUs are quite faster nowadays, and you can get things like _quad_ > :> 300MHz PPC core on an FPGA plus 20+ 3.2Gbps serdes I/Os - all on one chip. > :> So building multigigabit software router is a no-brainer. > > Usual PCs don't have such fancy hardware... They have quite fancier stuff inside, actually, from a technology point of view. Your run-of-the-mill Pentium IV requires a lot more advanced technology for design and manufacturing than the "platform FPGA" I referred to. The enormous design costs for those marvels of engineering are only bearable because of high volume. > If you call it software router, then all "network processor based > router" should also be called software router, right? "Software router" in my book is something which relies on programmable general-purpose devices for implementing packet routing functions. Network processors do not qualify (though they're nice, when they are actually available, which is not often - because chip vendors tend to drop niche products pronto when in a bind). One thing I learned well is to keep exotic stuff out of designs, because it never seems to be available w/o high-volume commitments, and even then tends to come a year later and full of "design features". --vadim
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