You are right [was Re: Ungodly packet loss rates]

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

I wouldn't say it's absolutely useless. Your router sales rep or SE can
tell you the features of the router, and you can verify those features
yourself. The point where I stop necessarily believing my sales rep is
when it comes to performance, and that's when independent side by side
testing is useful.

As for speed, it may not be an issue with you- yet. Anyone running an
OC-3 Internet backbone should be *very* concerned about speed, though.
They should also be concerned about scalability. Performance is not
the only factor to consider when buying a router (and you'll note the
Network World article considered a lot more than just performance), but
it is definitely something to consider. Remember, a lot of the current
scaling problems the Internet is having is because people use routers that
look pretty and have nice software features, but have dismal hardware.
"It can hold 40,000 routes, but if we get up to 50,000 I'll have to buy
a new router because this one can't hold any more memory."

In short, when spending the money for a high-end router, NO information
is useless.

-Jon

2

I am not shure this is for nanog, through:

  >No one answer. But - I get information _router XXX drops some packets if they
  >try to cause it work with 10 FDDI links, etc..., etc... very interesting
  >and absolutely useless...

...

  it is definitely something to consider. Remember, a lot of the current
  scaling problems the Internet is having is because people use routers that
  look pretty and have nice software features, but have dismal hardware.
  "It can hold 40,000 routes, but if we get up to 50,000 I'll have to buy
  a new router because this one can't hold any more memory."

You are right. But unfortunately this means the Cisco is the worst
selection because their hardware is badly scaled (let's compare
stackable Bay router, new Ascend's router and any - any - Cisco), they cause
customer to bue new CS4700 instead of CS4500 to make simple memory upgrade
(isn't it amazing? any Pentium PC can use more than 64Mb RAM
and hard, solid Cisco 4500 /with MIPS processor etc.../ can't? Is it
good hardware) from 32 to 64Mb RAM. And there is a lot of such examples
when Cisco's solution looks badky via bad hardware.

May be it's Cisco's problem; may be it's the play of Cisco's sales,
bay be it's reality - I do not know. But they cause small and middla-range
ISP to choose nonscalable solutions. And then total Internet society
loss total quality via this choose.

This moves me to the old idea - it's good news for ISP if any hardware
vendor makes new, good and competive router. Back to the _big brother_
subject - most ISP likes CISCO, and most hate it at the same time.

  In short, when spending the money for a high-end router, NO information
  is useless.

For old, solid network administrators - yes. But I see every day how some
brain-less manager in some company choose XXX-vendor's router because he
have read excellent article about this router - and then we (as ISP) spend
our time trieing this router to work (yes, we get our reward - but we are ISP, not
_bad hardware consultants_).