[j-nsp] TCAM full on EX8200?

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:04:37AM +0100, Phil Mayers wrote:
> 
> ...whereas because ACLs are variable length, determined by customers 
> and possibly large, performance of a RAM-based ACL algorithm is hard 
> to predict, and people want predictable performance, and usually 
> line-rate performance.

Just wait until you figure out that it's possible to get significantly 
less than line-rate performance out of an I-chip with just a dozen 
relatively simple firewall terms. :(

> Hehe. "Tag switching will make core routers really cheap, you'll have 
> a few really big PE routers only". Wasn't that the line we were sold 
> with TDP?

And they totally could be too, if anyone bothered to actually make them. 
You don't even need to spin custom ASICs (one could argue that their 
might not be enough business to justify it anyways), label switching is 
so easy from a hardware perspective that it's not even funny. Everyone 
and their mother is busy churning out Broadcom Trident+ based 64x10G 1U 
boxes right now (see: Juniper QFX, etc), and at a price of a couple 
hundred bucks a 10G even on the high end. Why aren't these boxes making 
great LSRs?

The problem is, the software side of MPLS (i.e. all of the associated 
protocols surrounding it) is so complicated, only Cisco and Juniper have 
figured out how to actually implement it correctly (and that is only 
because they wrote most of it :P). All the hardware in the world doesn't 
help you if you don't have the right software, and C/J shockingly don't 
want to make a $10k box that obsoletes the need for a $1mil T-series. 
This is why OpenFlow has them all running scared. :)

The PTX is the first thing to actually attempt to be a label switching 
router only, but even that one is a) still vaporware, and b) designed to 
be sold to only a handful of super large carriers, and still at fairly 
premium prices. All they're trying to do is keep the T-series business 
unit from losing money to the MX-series business unit (since the MX is 
just as capable of doing everything T does w/MPLS as a core router, but 
at 1/4 the price), they aren't ACTUALLY trying to make a cheaper LSR. :)

If more people used MPLS, and if some competetive vendor could figure 
out how to write all the protocols for it to run on a small/cheap box, 
the core router market could get REALLY interesting.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
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