10GE router resource

Hi everybody!

I find myself in the market for some 10GE routers. As
I don't buy these everyday, I was wondering if any of
you guys had any good resources for evaluating
different vendors and models. I'm mainly thinking
about non-vendor resources as the vendorspeak sites
are not that hard to find.

Also I'd love to hear recommendatios for "budget"
10GE
routers. The "budget" router would be used to hook
up
client networks through one 10GE interface and connect
to different transit providers through two 10GE
interfaces.

- Zed





     
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On Mar 24, 2008, at 10:23 AM, user user wrote:
>
> Hi everybody!
>
> I find myself in the market for some 10GE routers. As
> I don't buy these everyday, I was wondering if any of
> you guys had any good resources for evaluating
> different vendors and models. I'm mainly thinking
> about non-vendor resources as the vendorspeak sites
> are not that hard to find.
>
> Also I'd love to hear recommendatios for
"budget" 10GE
> routers. The "budget" router would be used to
hook up
> client networks through one 10GE interface and connect
> to different transit providers through two 10GE
> interfaces.
>
> - Zed

Hiya,

When it comes to budget, force10 are good. I wouldn't be
able to  
confirm if they're worth performance-wise.
I'd strongly suggest Foundry, I'm a big fan of their kits,
price-wise  
and performance-wise, provided you do not need
rocket-science features.
MLX/XMR models will surely do the trick perfectly.

When it comes to router purchasing habits, we all tend to
get  
religious...
Bottom line is that most of the 'regular' vendors (namely
Cisco,  
Juniper, Foundry, Force10, Extreme, Riverstone) implement
pretty much  
the same set of features, which are all IETF/IEEE
normalized, meaning  
if you don't need proprietary features (and you'll wish you
don't),  
any router will be fine, the only difference will come
from:
- the chassis being non-blocking or not (i.e. backplane
design)
- the price per port
- the operating OS
- the feeling you'll get with the salesperson, and the
reputation of  
their Support Teams.
- vendor specific features such as Flow Sampling
To make it simple, most vendors have an IOS like OS, except
Juniper  
which has a really clever and elegant OS, but are very
pricey.
Foundry and Force10 have the cheapest price per port
Cisco does only Netflow, Foundry & Force10 only SFlow
(which is a true  
standard) and I think Juniper does JFlow
Cisco's kits are packed with proprietary protocols (HSRP and
GLBP  
instead of VRRP, their own ethernet trunking, EIGRP as their
own and  
yet extremely efficient IGP, TCL scriptable CLI...) , some
of them are  
really good, some are crappy, but I suggest you'd stick with
IEEE/IETF  
protocol to avoid future trouble.

One thing: RSTP/802-1w is very (very, very, very) not often 

interoperable between vendors who all have their own
interpretation of  
the norm and can quickly turn into a nightmare.
I'd strongly suggest try&buys if (R)STP interoperability
is required,  
but I'm a little paranoid 

Greg VILLAIN
Independant Network & Telco Architecture Consultant

Chris Grundemann wrote:
> Greg has laid out a great bit of information and I
would like to add 
> just one possibility to the list of budget 10GE
routers: Vyatta.  
> According to a recent press release from that company 
> (h
ttp://www.vyatta.com/about/pressreleases.php?id=51) they
offer a 
> product that is "2 to 3X higher performance at a
cost savings of more 
> than 75 percent" when compared to Cisco's 7200. 
Unfortunately I have 
> not had the opportunity to test or use the Vyatta
routers yet; I have 
> however successfully used other open-source Linux based
routers in the 
> past with great success.  If  you are looking for a
truly budget 10GE 
> router, they may be worth adding to the list and
looking into.

Whether you can actually do 10Gb/s reasonably on a linux or
freebsd 
soft-switched router platform is going to depend a lot on
your actual 
pps rate.

800K pps which is 10Gb/s / 1500 bytes is feasible, but 19M
pps which is 
10Gb/s / 64 bytes is not.

Susceptibility to dos traffic at relatively low bit, but
high pps rates 
is a general issue with soft-switched platforms. and needs
to be 
accounted for in model deployments.

> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Greg VILLAIN
<nanoggrrrrreg.net 
> <mailto:nanoggrrrrreg.net>> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>     On Mar 24, 2008, at 10:23 AM, user user wrote:
>      >
>      > Hi everybody!
>      >
>      > I find myself in the market for some 10GE
routers. As
>      > I don't buy these everyday, I was wondering
if any of
>      > you guys had any good resources for
evaluating
>      > different vendors and models. I'm mainly
thinking
>      > about non-vendor resources as the vendorspeak
sites
>      > are not that hard to find.
>      >
>      > Also I'd love to hear recommendatios for
"budget" 10GE
>      > routers. The "budget" router would
be used to hook up
>      > client networks through one 10GE interface
and connect
>      > to different transit providers through two
10GE
>      > interfaces.
>      >
>      > - Zed
> 
>     Hiya,
> 
>     When it comes to budget, force10 are good. I
wouldn't be able to
>     confirm if they're worth performance-wise.
>     I'd strongly suggest Foundry, I'm a big fan of
their kits, price-wise
>     and performance-wise, provided you do not need
rocket-science features.
>     MLX/XMR models will surely do the trick perfectly.
> 
>     When it comes to router purchasing habits, we all
tend to get
>     religious...
>     Bottom line is that most of the 'regular' vendors
(namely Cisco,
>     Juniper, Foundry, Force10, Extreme, Riverstone)
implement pretty much
>     the same set of features, which are all IETF/IEEE
normalized, meaning
>     if you don't need proprietary features (and you'll
wish you don't),
>     any router will be fine, the only difference will
come from:
>     - the chassis being non-blocking or not (i.e.
backplane design)
>     - the price per port
>     - the operating OS
>     - the feeling you'll get with the salesperson, and
the reputation of
>     their Support Teams.
>     - vendor specific features such as Flow Sampling
>     To make it simple, most vendors have an IOS like
OS, except Juniper
>     which has a really clever and elegant OS, but are
very pricey.
>     Foundry and Force10 have the cheapest price per
port
>     Cisco does only Netflow, Foundry & Force10 only
SFlow (which is a true
>     standard) and I think Juniper does JFlow
>     Cisco's kits are packed with proprietary protocols
(HSRP and GLBP
>     instead of VRRP, their own ethernet trunking, EIGRP
as their own and
>     yet extremely efficient IGP, TCL scriptable CLI...)
, some of them are
>     really good, some are crappy, but I suggest you'd
stick with IEEE/IETF
>     protocol to avoid future trouble.
> 
>     One thing: RSTP/802-1w is very (very, very, very)
not often
>     interoperable between vendors who all have their
own interpretation of
>     the norm and can quickly turn into a nightmare.
>     I'd strongly suggest try&buys if (R)STP
interoperability is required,
>     but I'm a little paranoid 
> 
>     Greg VILLAIN
>     Independant Network & Telco Architecture
Consultant
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "Those who do not create the future they want must
endure the future 
> they get."
> ~Draper L. Kaufman, Jr.
> -- 

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Chris Grundemann
<cgrundemanngmail.com> wrote:
> Greg has laid out a great bit of information and I
would like to add just
> one possibility to the list of budget 10GE routers:
Vyatta.  According to a
> recent press release from that company
> (h
ttp://www.vyatta.com/about/pressreleases.php?id=51) they
offer a product
> that is "2 to 3X higher performance at a cost
savings of more than 75
> percent" when compared to Cisco's 7200.

"Vyatta operates at Layer 3 wire speed across three
Gigabit Ethernet
ports in full mesh when forwarding 512-byte frames or
higher."

3x1 GE << 1x10 GE

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrindirtside.com  billherrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>

Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

At 12:36 PM 3/25/2008, Greg VILLAIN wrote:
I'd strongly suggest Foundry, I'm a big fan of their kits,
price-wise
>and performance-wise, provided you do not need
rocket-science features.
>MLX/XMR models will surely do the trick perfectly.

I agree too. They still have a bit of development to do on
the IPv6 
side, but they are getting there. We are using them with Cat
65XXs 
with SXF Sup720-3BXLs and XMRs. We run ISIS, BGP, and BFD.
Everything 
they say works really does. We have been very pleased.
Definitely put 
them on your short list. The price per port can't be beat
and their 
support is stellar. If you want to reliably route IPv4 and
IPv6 at 
wire speeds regardless of packet size or rate and optionally
filter 
at wire speed too on all ports then they make a great box.

-Robert



Tellurian Networks - Global Hosting Solutions Since 1995
http://www.tellurian.com
| 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211
"Well done is better than well said." - Benjamin
Franklin

On Mar 25, 2008, at 1:42 PM, Robert Boyle wrote:

>
> At 12:36 PM 3/25/2008, Greg VILLAIN wrote:
> I'd strongly suggest Foundry, I'm a big fan of their
kits, price-wise
>> and performance-wise, provided you do not need
rocket-science  
>> features.
>> MLX/XMR models will surely do the trick perfectly.
>
> I agree too. They still have a bit of development to do
on the IPv6  
> side, but they are getting there. We are using them
with Cat 65XXs  
> with SXF Sup720-3BXLs and XMRs. We run ISIS, BGP, and
BFD.  
> Everything they say works really does. We have been
very pleased.  
> Definitely put them on your short list. The price per
port can't be  
> beat and their support is stellar. If you want to
reliably route  
> IPv4 and IPv6 at wire speeds regardless of packet size
or rate and  
> optionally filter at wire speed too on all ports then
they make a  
> great box.
>
> -Robert

Totally agree.
Foundry support is top notch and the boxes do deliver the
promised  
performance.

The headroom is impressive when the CPU is at 99%. Somehow
*cough* we  
(me) pegged
the CPU on the Server Irons and still had a very very
responsive  
console. Was able to find
the self inflicted error and fix the problem quickly. Out
testers on  
the outside say they did not
notice a performance degradation.

Foundry's performance and support make the price a clear
value.

I've only experienced two flavors, Cisco and Foundry.

Eddy

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 1:56 PM, William Herrin
<herrin-nanogdirtside.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Chris Grundemann
<cgrundemanngmail.com> wrote:
> > Greg has laid out a great bit of information and I
would like to add just
> > one possibility to the list of budget 10GE
routers: Vyatta.  According to a
> > recent press release from that company
> > (h
ttp://www.vyatta.com/about/pressreleases.php?id=51) they
offer a product
> > that is "2 to 3X higher performance at a cost
savings of more than 75
> > percent" when compared to Cisco's 7200.
>
>
> "Vyatta operates at Layer 3 wire speed across
three Gigabit Ethernet
> ports in full mesh when forwarding 512-byte frames or
higher."
>
> 3x1 GE << 1x10 GE

It appears that I put my foot in my mouth.  I have read
several claims
that the Vyatta software is scalable to 10G, most notably
here:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/200
8/031708-vyatta-open-source-router.html.
 Upon further investigation, I have been unable to
substantiate that
claim.

My experience is similar to those who have posted here, pps
is the
limiting factor - usually somewhere between 500-800K. 
Apparently I
was over eager to believe that more had been achieved.

To Ann's question on resources; I have only used Linux
routers with 1G
ports but have surpassed 10G total throughput (up+ down)
using various
dual proc set ups, most often Intel Xeon in Dell servers.  A
gentlemen
by the name of Martin Pels wrote a good paper on the subject
early
last year that can be found here:
h
ttp://docs.rodecker.nl/10-GE_Routing_on_Linux.pdf.  He
hit a wall at
700K pps and was using two dual core Intel Xeon 64bit
2.33GHz CPUs and
2GB of RAM in a Dell PowerEdge 1950.

~Chris

>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>
>
> --
> William D. Herrin ................ herrindirtside.com  billherrin.us
> 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>

> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
>

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008, Chris Grundemann wrote:

> To Ann's question on resources; I have only used Linux
routers with 1G
> ports but have surpassed 10G total throughput (up+
down) using various
> dual proc set ups, most often Intel Xeon in Dell
servers.  A gentlemen
> by the name of Martin Pels wrote a good paper on the
subject early
> last year that can be found here:
> h
ttp://docs.rodecker.nl/10-GE_Routing_on_Linux.pdf.  He
hit a wall at
> 700K pps and was using two dual core Intel Xeon 64bit
2.33GHz CPUs and
> 2GB of RAM in a Dell PowerEdge 1950.

Mike Tancsa did some benchmarking in late 2006:

http://www.tancsa.co
m/blast.html

I think things are slightly faster now but not because of a
massive
change in software architecture.




Adrian

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Chris Grundemann
<cgrundemanngmail.com> wrote:
> Greg has laid out a great bit of information and I
would like to add just
> one possibility to the list of budget 10GE routers:
Vyatta.  According to a
> recent press release from that company
> (h
ttp://www.vyatta.com/about/pressreleases.php?id=51) they
offer a product
> that is "2 to 3X higher performance at a cost
savings of more than 75
> percent" when compared to Cisco's 7200. 
Unfortunately I have not had the

when did the 7200 go 10ge?