I got a router, it's got 5-6 10GE interfaces talking to other routers on my network backbone, and a bunch of 10GE links to end-user-facing aggregation switches. Since it's only forwarding inside my network, it's a core router by your definition.
I now turn up an identical hardware 10GE link - connected to Level3. I just became an edge router by your definition since I'm talking to another network. (I know, I probably don't want to do that - but I *could*, maybe even without a full BGP feed if the routing situation allows. The point is the definition is busticated).
Adding to the confusion is the fact that the edge routers of some large providers need more capacity than the core routers of smaller organizations....
There's a problem here in that some people want 'core router' to mean 'biggest fscking router', while other people want a functional definition that explains a router's role in the design of a network. For an enterprise, for example, it doesn't make sense for them to have a router in the middle of their network and then tell them "but you can not call it your core router, because that term is reserved for routers with 200g or more capacity per slot (Jared's def'n)." I'm going to submit that the "big fscking router" definition is stupid and meaningless, because today's big fscking router is tomorrow's small aggregation router, and then a few years later just a coffee table stand. Hello, 7513 from .. what, 1995? :-) A more customary understanding of border, core, etc., can be found in places like RFC4098. Generally speaking, a core router is an internal router, i.e. one that speaks only to other devices/endpoints/whatever in the same AS. Various refinements to the definition might want it to speak BGP, etc. That definition is very reasonable. A small enterprise with a DS3 to the 'net has a border router that connects them to their ISP, which connects to a firewall/IDS that protects their net, and then a core router that connects all their internal networks and links to the firewall for external connectivity. You could talk to most network engineers and they'd understand the terminology without further explanation. There are of course problems with the core and border definitions as well, of course, such as what happens when you connect a core router interface to an upstream and you wind up with a mongrel. However, the "core means bfr" definition strikes me as singularly useless and something that's really more marketingspeak from router vendors who would like you to think of these routers powering the core of the Internet, or whatever. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.