Note that this trick of downloading full routes to linecards didn't originate with Cisco but with the NSFNET NSS aka IBM 6611-prime, later known as Milford route (these latter were the name when the IBM Global Network was built on them; now its all Cisco's I believe). John Leddy is apparently lurking in the background here and can correct me if I'm wrong and the NSS wasn't the first to do this trick. Or Rich Woundy if he's lurking around as well. Dorian R. Kim wrote:
On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, Michael Dillon wrote:
on aggregating up local access lines into VC11/VC12, dropping that into a POP-in-a-box at STM-16 and pulling out STM-16c to a big crunchy IP router.
I don't know everything. Sean will have to translate VC11 and VC12.
VC = Virtual Containers. Basically a way of repackaging, or adapting PDH singls to STM-1 frame. There a many different VCs, and I don't know which ones 11 and 12 are without looking them up.
Again, Sean will have to identify pst, but tli is Tony Li of Juniper
Pst is Paul Traina, formerly of Cisco and currently Juniper.
Oh that and helping beat on CEF/DFIB packet-by-packet load balancing before my last retirement.
Once again, I'm at a loss as ti what CEF/DFIB stands for.
Cisco Express Forwarding/Distributed Forwarding Information Base. Former being another stupid marketing stunt while the latter being a more descriptive name. Basically it builds a full forwarding table that's downloaded to the individual linecards, freeing the RP to do what it's supposed to do, i.e. route calculationgs, and freeing network operators from the evils of cache.
Some of the neat things that comes with this trick are the per-packet load balancing, per adjacency and per prefix accounting among others.
-dorian