Re: OT: ISPs: Linux's role nowadays

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On 25/02/2010 14:00, Chris Adams wrote:
> Once upon a time, Marcel Rieux <m.z.rieux@xxxxxxxxx> said:
>> I was under the impression that, at most small ISPs, Linux had
>> replaced Unix and played a central role in making things work. But
>> today, I spoke to an ISP employee who told me that Linux was only used
>> for Web servers and that, for routing and firewalling, nobody escaped
>> companies Cisco and Juniper which provide "solutions" where part of
>> the software has been integrated into hardware for efficiency
>> purposes.
> 
> Servers don't really make good routers.  When you are talking about
> traditional low- to mid-speed telco circuits (T1, T3), there have never
> been good, well-supported, cost-effective solutions for connecting those
> directly to Linux systems for routing that could compete with a basic
> Juniper or Cisco (or Adtran or ...) on price and ease of use.
> 
> When you start talking about SONET links (OC-3 and up), Linux AFAIK
> doesn't handle things like protected paths and the like, and then you
> also quickly pass the performance capability of commodity hardware.
> Newer WAN circuits are using Ethernet, but you need OAM (which Linux
> doesn't support) to properly manage them as a replacement for
> traditional telco circuits.
> 
> "Real" routers (aka Juniper and Cisco) use hardware-based forwarding
> that can run at line rate for 1G, 10G, and 100G interfaces.
> 
> Dynamic routing has always been pretty weak in Linux as well.  I have a
> few systems running Quagga for various purposes, but it is not nearly as
> powerful and flexible as a "traditional" router.
> 
> Now, Juniper routers all run FreeBSD, but that's only on the routing
> engine (where the management and routing daemons run), not the
> forwarding engine (where the actual packet forwarding takes place).
> Juniper wrote all their own routing, PPP management, etc. daemons from
> scratch.  It is kind of funny when you spend $100K+ on a router that has
> a Celeron 850 CPU and a whopping 20G hard drive. :-)
> 
> I have lots of Linux servers, a few other old Unix servers, and a couple
> of Linux firewalls, but all my routers are Juniper.  I've been working
> for small ISPs for 14 years, and I've never really seen a time where I
> would try to push Linux into serious routing.  It costs too much on the
> low end and can't handle the performance on the high end.
> 

People have had great success with OpenBSD on firewalls and routers with
lots of traffic and 10GB NIC's etc
-- 
users mailing list
users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe or change subscription options:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users
Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines

[Index of Archives]     [Current Fedora Users]     [Fedora Desktop]     [Fedora SELinux]     [Yosemite News]     [Yosemite Photos]     [KDE Users]     [Fedora Tools]     [Fedora Docs]

  Powered by Linux