[Techtalk] Re: Networking things

[Michelle Murrain]

At 11:53 PM 10/11/2001, Raven, corporate courtesan wrote:
> > I have a feeling switches will totally replace hubs in a few years 
> (This has
> > happened on the cable/DSL router level) and for routers and switches to
> > merge into one device, which will probably also include a stateful firewall
> > inside.
>
>         I could see it.  And you know, you can do all that (and cheaply,
>too) under Linux.  Now that Linux is supporting more of the really high
>speed hardware, solutions like this are becoming more attractive to
>ISPs.  You can make a heavy-duty router/switch/firewall under Linux for
>about $1,000 in hardware.  About the cheapest commercial product you can
>get with the same functionality is easily three times that.  Now, if the
>routing protocol software for Linux improves, we may see it on the
>Internet backbone someday soon.  (I don't know of any ISPs that have
>Linux routers at their core yet, but it's definitely viable at the
>edge.)

Yeah, but don't you sacrafice speed? I can't imagine that 
switching/routing/firewalling using a PC running linux will be anywhere 
near as fast as an all-hardware solution, right? Or am I wrong? Isn't the 
major issue here that you get functionality, but sacrifice speed? And 
wouldn't speed be of primary importance on the backbone?


.Michelle
------------------------
Michelle Murrain
michelle at murrain.net   AIM:pearlbear0
http://www.murrain.net/public_key.html for pgp public key

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