Meraki

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Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:32:10 -0500
From: Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu>
To: Rob Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Meraki
Message-ID:
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CALFTrnPpBQLHRRDkMnt1nz8Wi0k3B6KEmt9tbgNS-wfRHqSnqQ@mail.gmail.com>
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It looks like Brocade has swapped out Quagga with IP Infusion's non-free
version, ZebOS. They also decided to abandon the FOSS Vyatta Core project.

A number of years back it was interesting to see Vyatta switch from XORP
[0] to Quagga. I found out quite a while after they made the move.

Bummer.
This move by Brocade is unfortunate.

It's really unfortunate, as the FOSS project is the only reason I was
interested in paying the licensing. It was attractive to have Vyatta Core
as a no-cost option for small things, and the subscription edition for
higher visibility devices. Now that they've moved away from having any
FOSS project, I'm not really inclined to invest in the product, I'm sure
there are others who feel the same way.

There is a group of people who were active in the Vyatta community trying
to get a fork of it going under the name VyOS, http://www.vyos.net/

Thanks for pointing out VyOS.

As far as Ubiquiti, it looks like about 2 years ago they actually hired a
few people from Vyatta, Inc. to work on EdgeOS. So development of EdgeOS
has continued [and likely will continue] independently, though it looks
like at least a few people from UBNT are interested in seeing VyOS happen
and participating on their own time. I know one of the early goals for
VyOS is to get the documentation up on their Wiki and have a release of the
current Vyatta Core with the name swapped out as a starting point.

For those of you that purchased EdgeRouter Lite (ERLite-3) [2] units
recently, do they come in plastic enclosure or the steel enclosure like the
EdgeRouter PoE (ERPoe-5) [3] units? We got a few of each in at the office
at different times (first ERL and later ERPoe). Just curious.

I guess I'm spoiled ... I like the metal case much better than the plastic
ones. Once I saw the case of the PoE model and saw the new pictures [4]
for the ERL on Ubiquiti's site I've been holding out purchasing an ERL for
my home. I should bug our distributor, but I doubt they'd know since they
aren't opening the boxes prior to shipment.

Although a commercial alternative, Mikrotik hardware (ex: RB750GL [1]) and
OS is attractive. It appears all Mikrotik "integrated solutions" include
some sort of enclosure (see www.routerboard.com). The CLI takes some
getting used to, but the syntax makes sense after a while. :wink: There's also
a webui called webfig and a Windows client called Winbox.

I really hope the VyOS project can get off the ground. If any developers
familiar with maintaining Debian-based distributions are on-list, I know
the project is looking for people to help.

+1
I hope VyOS project succeeds.

[0] XORP - Wikipedia
[1] MikroTik Routers and Wireless - Products: RB750GL
[2]
http://www.ubnt.com/media/product/edgemax/hardware-overview/edgerouter-lite-1.jpg
[3]
http://www.ubnt.com/media/product/edgemax/hardware-overview/edgerouter-poe-1.jpg
[4] UniFi - Introduction - Ubiquiti

2

Can confirm the current ER Lite is a plastic enclosure.
But for $ 100 I can definitely look past that.

Also, most of the UBNT distributers seem to be very knowledgeable about the
product line, so I'm sure they would know if you asked them :slight_smile:

We've been running XORP internally for about 100+ CPE devices (actually the
ones we were looking at Vyatta as a replacement for). In the end I think
that moving to Quagga was a good thing for Vyatta as XORP doesn't have a
very active developer community. XORP releases since 1.6 have been a forked
code base that eventually became XORP 1.8. It's very touchy, and requires
quite a bit of operational experience to know what will cause it to crash
and what won't. The big thing you get with XORP that you don't with Quagga
is multicast routing, and a more active community. I've been really
interested in BIRD [0] as well, but haven't had a chance to try it out.

Back to UBNT, though. The ER makes use of a lot of non-free code (not so
great), but it's to facilitate hardware acceleration (very nice). A lot of
functionality for IPv4 and IPv6 are both implemented in hardware, including
not just forwarding and NAT, but also regex matching for DPI. It's how
they can get so much PPS for such a modest piece of hardware. I believe
the chips they use are from Cavium [1], but I could be mistaken.

[0]. http://bird.network.cz/
[1]. http://www.cavium.com/

3

Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> writes:

Can confirm the current ER Lite is a plastic enclosure.

I got mine almost a year ago, and mine is plastic too.

But for $ 100 I can definitely look past that.

Likewise.

I believe the chips they use are from Cavium [1], but I could be mistaken.

The bootloader output agrees with you :slight_smile:

-r

4

Can confirm the current ER Lite is a plastic enclosure.
But for $ 100 I can definitely look past that.

At that price point I'm not complaining.
However I do have a preference. :wink:
And I do think that the metal cases are a better design - sturdier and
likely better heat dissipation.

Also, most of the UBNT distributers seem to be very knowledgeable about
the product line, so I'm sure they would know if you asked them :slight_smile:

Our rep had to do some digging...

He managed to tell me that the ERLite now has a metal case. He did not
tell me whether they have any with metal enclosures. But that's probably
hard for them to say though.

We've been running XORP internally for about 100+ CPE devices (actually
the ones we were looking at Vyatta as a replacement for). In the end I
think that moving to Quagga was a good thing for Vyatta as XORP doesn't
have a very active developer community. XORP releases since 1.6 have been a
forked code base that eventually became XORP 1.8. It's very touchy, and
requires quite a bit of operational experience to know what will cause it
to crash and what won't. The big thing you get with XORP that you don't
with Quagga is multicast routing, and a more active community. I've been
really interested in BIRD [0] as well, but haven't had a chance to try it
out.

BIRD is on my list too.

Back to UBNT, though. The ER makes use of a lot of non-free code (not so
great), but it's to facilitate hardware acceleration (very nice). A lot of
functionality for IPv4 and IPv6 are both implemented in hardware, including
not just forwarding and NAT, but also regex matching for DPI. It's how
they can get so much PPS for such a modest piece of hardware. I believe
the chips they use are from Cavium [1], but I could be mistaken.

[0]. http://bird.network.cz/
[1]. http://www.cavium.com/

Thanks for the informative discussion, Ray! And others :slight_smile: