Re: Vyatta as a BRAS

[khatfield () socllc net]

My comment would be:
That is simply matter of opinion and opinions may be swayed depending on the market that signs your check? :)

There have been a fair share of appliance bugs/sec vulnerabilities over the years as well. 

I agree software-based deployments have their flaws but I do not agree that it cannot be managed securely with 
comparable or exceeding uptime -vs- a drop in appliance. I firmly believe it has it's place in 'today's internet'.

The question is where your expertise lies and what you expect to get out of it. If your background is Cisco and you 
have a good relationship then I wouldn't fix what isn't broken.

I have very little experience with Vyatta other than doing some mild testing. I am simply speaking more to the 
'software-based' market like Vyatta/BSD.
-----Original Message-----
From: Truman Boyes <truman () suspicious org>
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:56:16 
To: Dobbins, Roland<rdobbins () arbor net>
Cc: NANOG list<nanog () nanog org>
Subject: Re: Vyatta as a BRAS


On 13/07/2010, at 4:50 PM, Dobbins, Roland wrote:

> On Jul 13, 2010, at 1:34 PM, Sharef Mustafa wrote:
>
> > do you recommend it?
>
>
> My comment would be that a software-based BRAS - 7200, Vyatta, et. al. - is no longer viable in today's Internet, and 
> hasn't been for years, due to security/availability concerns.  Same for peering/transit edge, customer aggregation 
> edge, et. al.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Roland Dobbins <rdobbins () arbor net> // <http://www.arbornetworks.com>
>
>    Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
>
>                        -- H.L. Mencken

I agree. In a bind I have seen small providers experiment with FreeBSD/Linux L2TP termination (as a LNS), I would 
recommend against it if you have a business that depends upon these customers' happiness. There were all sorts of 
issues to address when the customer ran significant traffic forwarding through the unix boxes, namely adjusting kernel 
parameters for NMB_CLUSTERS, heap sizes, all sorts of sysctl parameters, adding additional interface counts, etc. A low 
cost 7200 or ERX-310 would easily fit the bill, and you can buy them cheap these days. 

Cheers,
Truman