Re: Vyatta as a BRAS

["Dobbins, Roland" <rdobbins () arbor net>]

On Jul 14, 2010, at 9:31 AM, Dan White wrote:

> has the appearance of you struggling to hold on to an idea that may have been more true in the past,

It's true today, and I'm not 'struggling to hold' onto anything.  Take any software-based router from Cisco or Juniper 
or whomever (if Juniper still make software-based routers, I don't know if they do or not), packet it until it falls 
over, then repeat the process with a properly-configured hardware-based router from the same manufacturer - you can 
demonstrate the validity of the proposition for yourself, as the hardware-based router can handle considerably more 
traffic, whereas the software-based router will pitch over as a result of a surprisingly small amount of traffic.

> and less true today, as is evident based on the input from other list participants.


Input based upon experience which is seemingly heavily weighted towards the lower end, rather than the higher end, of 
network speeds and routing platforms - and which doesn't seem to encompass much examination of the ability of said 
lower-end devices to maintain availability in the face of direct attack.

It can be quite interesting to take a packet-generator to a software-based router and see just how easy it is to make 
it fall over, and then repeat the experience with a hardware-based router, and consider the implications thereof, even 
at relatively low bandwidth/throughput.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Dobbins <rdobbins () arbor net> // <http://www.arbornetworks.com>

    Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

                        -- H.L. Mencken