On Wed, Aug 29, 2001 at 10:41:09AM -0400, Andrew Partan wrote:
To the extent that this is true, and to the extent that router vendors can and are willing to fix the problem, and to the extent that ISPs can and are willing to deploy the new gear, and to the extent that the overall problem is fixable by making the nodes that make up the entire system faster, this is only a one-shot fix.
Maybe. For a single CPU, getting up to the state of the art, yes, it is a one shot fix. Mind you it's one shot that could add _years_ of service to the existing solution (a 10x speed up in CPU could give us 3+ years right there, if you believe doubling every year). I think there is real promise in SMP though. There are many SMP applications that scale near linearly, and I think properly designed routing can be one of them. If a linear SMP solution can be found then there is at least one way to scale the routing infrastructure to near infinate size simply for $$$'s. Even if a modest 4 processor design using the latest technology could only yeild a one time, 50x speed up that would give us 5+ years (again, doubling every year) of not worrying about that end of it to work on new protocols and the like. Heck, if you believe the predictions in 5 years we'll be out of address space and ASN's anyway, so a 'one shot' fix might take us to the end of the IPv4 days. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org Systems Engineer - Internetworking Engineer - CCIE 3440 Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request@tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org