Dear Nathanael,
Just want to ask if anyone here had experience deploying software-based
routers to serve as perimeter / border router? How does it gauge with
hardware-based routers? Any past experiences will be very much
appreciated.
I wanted to know because we've been asked if we want to assume full
control of the internet link (up to the router). By assuming control up
to the router, we still want to configure iBGP with our parent network
so that we can take advantage of some routes available to the parent
network's gateway. The saddest part is presently we do not have the
router to serve as our gateway this is why we are considering the use of
software-based routers.
I operate freebsd / quagga core routers since 4 years.
pro: cheap, tcpdump at router
con: no support, no wirespeed
expected performance: 100kpps (1,2ghz pentium m) - 700kpps (quad intel
core 2, 3ghz) - and much more with 10gige cards
issues: 4byte asn produced a crash at quagga (downtime 2h in 4 years)
to develop a good core-router, this means not only to setup a pc with unix
and for example quagga, but setup an embedded unix to an appliance, for
example with cf-cards (readonly).
Kind regards,
Ingo Flaschberger
