Why vendors feel the need to design route
processors which are barely upgradable in RAM, not upgradable in
processing power, and at best 24-36 months behind the times of the
technology the Dell Interns are pushing for $499, is beyond me.
It's called profit margins.
The thing that surprises me is that there aren't any small
vendors offering fairly generic routing boxes, i.e. Intel-based
motherboard, lots of RAM, BSD/Linux base OS with Zebra for
routing and some of the many PCI cards supporting T1 and
DS3 circuits (not to forget GigE...). In most other industries
that are dominated by a few large brand-name high-margin
suppliers there are also several low-margin suppliers offering
generic products with minimal handholding. Why don't we
see this in the router business?
--Michael Dillon