----- Original Message ----- From: "Fernando Gleiser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "James Earl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 1:26 PM Subject: Re: advise on gateway-setup
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, James Earl wrote: > > > > > I'm in a similar position, but on a smaller scale. I'm trying to figure > > out where these Switched Gateway/Routers/Firewall/VPN devices that are > > coming on the market fit in, and where it is better to use our favorite > > FreeBSD machine to do the work? Would I be wrong in assuming these little > > hardware devices are faster at the job than a FreeBSD machine? > > In my opinion, unless a) you have a corporate policy which says what to > deploy or b) you have a very large scale project which needs "Big Iron" > or c) you need dedicated hardware/software only available for the "hardware > solution" (ie EIGRP, or some very specialized WAN card) there is no reason > to install a dedicated "hardware solution" instead of a BSD box. > > They may be atractive in the beginning, but you need to factor the > costs and availability of support, software licences/updates, replacement > parts and the like. Have you ever asked how much an extra 100BT card for > a Cisco costs? :) > > One of the main advantages of the BSD/Linux solution is the hardware > availability. If a NIC blows, you can get another one in less than one > hour for less than $80. You don't need a dedicated (Cisco|Nokia|whoever) > hardware. I have a question. I also run a FreeBSD gateway/firewall, but have read in the sysadmin handbook and at FreeBSD.org that it is not recommended to use a *NIX system in this capacity. Why? Thanks, Joshua To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
