see existing computers (including embedded ones) have not CPU and memory problems, and all problems we see with the routers are mainly caused by the bad implemented text.
I, and the rest of the Internet community, would like to invite you to start a router company and show us how it can be done with far less memory. Sorry, I forget -:); on the other hand, if you want to build the router wasting 8 bytes for every BGP prefix, you no doubt do it (don't asnwer _buy more memory instead, it's cheaper_ - no one object this).
Speaking about the CISCO's, no one thought about the memory when realised BGP there; the worst failures in the CISCO history was caused by some _temporary_ prefix leaks which caused routers to eat memory _permanently_ (last case was in our network 1 week ago when we leaked extra 20,000 prefixes to our access routers; it was fixed in a 5 minutes, but more then half of them get stomachache and refuse to work even when this leak disappeared... I don't blame the software designers, they must found the compromise between the stability, time_to_implement, cost and memory, but I'd like to highlight that they really did not concerned about such _cheap_ thing as memory at all). (let me to put -:) here). But you hided my idea that the less prefixes we allow to be in the global Internet, the less effectively we use address space; memory can be upgraded (not easily due to bad router's design, through /compare with the PC, and you should aggreee), the address space can not at all. This means we are facing to the growth routing tables no matter if we dislike it. Alex.
Regards, Tony
Aleksei Roudnev, the head of Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 230-41-41, N 13729 (pager) (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)