RE: Zebra/linux device production networking?

["Mark D. Kaye" <mark () eatonkaye com>]

Hi,

I am also newbie poster so likewise plz be kind.

I tend to agree with the comments made so far, however depending upon
the business, budgets are not always available that might match the
requirements and hence I can to some degree understand the use of such
boxes for small organisations.  
I would be interested to know how many "software" (for want of a better
description) routers are in live production in this kind of environment
i.e. the 99.9999% Uptime variety, from speaking to people albeit
randomly in data centres it would seem to be more common than one might
expect.
Also does anyone have any peering policies which would exclude peers
with "software" routers specifically, most have a requirement for the
ability to support stable BGP peering but I have not seen any specific
exclusions for such "devices"? 

Mark

________________________________________
From: owner-nanog () merit edu [mailto:owner-nanog () merit edu] On Behalf Of
Tiffany Snyder
Sent: 06 June 2006 23:29
To: Nick Burke
Cc: nanog () merit edu
Subject: Re: Zebra/linux device production networking?

IMHO, it's a bad idea. A less intrusive alternative might be a FreeBSD
based platform running Xorp/Quagga.

Tiffany.
On 6/6/06, Nick Burke <mrmud () mrmud org> wrote:

Greetings fellow nanogers,

Long time lurker, first time poster (please, be gentle!).

After looking at the archives, I didn't see this particular discussion,
so here we go.

First, a little background.. 
My CTO made my stomach curdle today when he announced that he wanted to
do away with all our cisco [routers] and instead use Linux/zebra boxen.
We are a small company, so naturally penny pinching is the primary
motivation. That, and the sheer joy of watching me squirm. He has
informed me that he has found "many people" who do this for their "core
devices". I'm not so certain about this whole situation, so I humbly
ask: 

How many of you have actually use(d) Zebra/Linux as a routing device
(core and/or regional, I'd be interested in both) in a production (read:
99.999% required, hsrp, bgp, dot1q, other goodies) environment?

And, if you care to spend this much time, what pitfalls/benefits did you
find out about after implementation?

Has there been any discussion (or musings) of moving towards such a
solution? I've seen a lot of articles talking about it, but I've not 
actually seen many network operators chiming in.

Here's the article that started it all (this was featured on /., so
likely you've read it already).

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2004/tc20041129_5206_t
c024.htm
and another:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/5693

Feel free to respond off list. If anyone else is interested, I will of
course summarize to list or to individuals.

(ps, particulars are deliberately not included.. I'm not looking for
advice, just if anyone has any solid experience with this..)