RE: Zebra/linux device production networking?
Hi, I am also newbie poster so likewise plz be kind. I tend to agree with the comments made so far, however depending upon the business, budgets are not always available that might match the requirements and hence I can to some degree understand the use of such boxes for small organisations. I would be interested to know how many "software" (for want of a better description) routers are in live production in this kind of environment i.e. the 99.9999% Uptime variety, from speaking to people albeit randomly in data centres it would seem to be more common than one might expect. Also does anyone have any peering policies which would exclude peers with "software" routers specifically, most have a requirement for the ability to support stable BGP peering but I have not seen any specific exclusions for such "devices"? Mark ________________________________________ From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Tiffany Snyder Sent: 06 June 2006 23:29 To: Nick Burke Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Zebra/linux device production networking? IMHO, it's a bad idea. A less intrusive alternative might be a FreeBSD based platform running Xorp/Quagga. Tiffany. On 6/6/06, Nick Burke <mrmud@mrmud.org> wrote: Greetings fellow nanogers, Long time lurker, first time poster (please, be gentle!). After looking at the archives, I didn't see this particular discussion, so here we go. First, a little background.. My CTO made my stomach curdle today when he announced that he wanted to do away with all our cisco [routers] and instead use Linux/zebra boxen. We are a small company, so naturally penny pinching is the primary motivation. That, and the sheer joy of watching me squirm. He has informed me that he has found "many people" who do this for their "core devices". I'm not so certain about this whole situation, so I humbly ask: How many of you have actually use(d) Zebra/Linux as a routing device (core and/or regional, I'd be interested in both) in a production (read: 99.999% required, hsrp, bgp, dot1q, other goodies) environment? And, if you care to spend this much time, what pitfalls/benefits did you find out about after implementation? Has there been any discussion (or musings) of moving towards such a solution? I've seen a lot of articles talking about it, but I've not actually seen many network operators chiming in. Here's the article that started it all (this was featured on /., so likely you've read it already). http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2004/tc20041129_5206_t c024.htm and another: http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/5693 Feel free to respond off list. If anyone else is interested, I will of course summarize to list or to individuals. (ps, particulars are deliberately not included.. I'm not looking for advice, just if anyone has any solid experience with this..)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mark D. Kaye wrote:
I would be interested to know how many "software" (for want of a better description) routers are in live production in this kind of environment i.e. the 99.9999% Uptime variety, from speaking to people albeit randomly in data centres it would seem to be more common than one might expect.
With the prevalence of Metro Ethernet, I'd think it's probably a pretty common thing. People run firewalls as routers (stuff like CheckPoint), which is basically Linux or FreeBSD, although not with EGP/IGP.
Also does anyone have any peering policies which would exclude peers with "software" routers specifically, most have a requirement for the ability to support stable BGP peering but I have not seen any specific exclusions for such "devices"?
MD5 authed BGP sessions might be an issue - At least with Linux it requires a kernel patch (works for me). I'd peered with plenty of big carriers with Linux stuff and they don't care. I probably have more issues with a carrier I peer with who uses Juniper and feeds me my prefixes at a rate of about 50/sec, rather than 2000/sec that I get from others using Cisco (My gear is Cisco in this instance) David -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFEhgiuTIgPQWnLowkRAo8eAJ9ZLANIku/rvRbRn5z5/kwbNnOspwCg5HfJ nUnzCg1xmcRc/4v3uiq1/eY= =bVnW -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
I would be interested to know how many "software" (for want of a better description) routers are in live production in this kind of environment i.e. the 99.9999% Uptime variety, from speaking to people albeit randomly in data centres it would seem to be more common than one might expect.
It is indeed very common. That is why there are several implementations of BGP and routing software available. These are used in dozens and dozens of commercial products some of which are sold as IP routers, plain and simple. In any case, 5 nines and 6 nines are not always what the marketing department claims. They often exclude planned maintenance periods so if you reboot once a week or you have a crash after changing a config, that doesn't count against the 5 nines. In addition, the 5 nines figure generally applies to the network, not to individual devices within it. Networks can be designed so that the failure of a device does not cause a network outage. This whole issue is so complex that you just can't make blanket recommendations. Even the biggest networks don't just buy and deploy big iron. They run every new router model and software release through an extensive battery of tests. Then they write operational guidelines telling people which features can be used in which situations. They do this to avoid crashes and network outages because the big iron (Cisco/Juniper) simply cannot provide that on its own. A smart small company can get excellent results from Linux routers (although I would take a serious look at FreeBSD or OpenBSD for this). Process is as important as hardware. --Michael Dillon
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