nanog mailing list archives

Re: Routers in Data Centers


From: bmanning () vacation karoshi com
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:16:23 +0000



the power/cooling budget for a rack full of router vs a rack
full of cores might be distinction to make.  I know that 
historically, the data center operator made no distinction
and a client decided to "push past the envelope" and replaced
their kit with space heaters.  most data centers now are fairly
restrictive on the power/cooling budget for a given footprint.


--bill



On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 01:08:23PM -0400, Warren Kumari wrote:

On Sep 24, 2010, at 6:22 AM, Venkatesh Sriram wrote:

Hi,

Can somebody educate me on (or pass some pointers) what differentiates
a router operating and optimized for data centers versus, say a router
work in the metro ethernet space? What is it thats required for
routers operating in data centers? High throughput, what else?


While this question has many dimensions and there is no real  
definition of either I suspect that what many people mean when they  
talk about a DC routers is:
Primarily Ethernet interfaces
High port density
Designed to deal with things like VRRP / VLAN / ethernet type features.
Possibly CAM based, possibly smaller buffers.
Less likely to be taking full routes.

This is very similar to the religious debate about "What's the  
difference between a 'real' router and a L3 switch?"

Just my 2 cents.
W



Thanks, Venkatesh


--
Consider orang-utans.
In all the worlds graced by their presence, it is suspected that they  
can talk but choose not to do so in case humans put them to work,  
possibly in the television industry. In fact they can talk. It's just  
that they talk in Orang-utan. Humans are only capable of listening in  
Bewilderment.
-- Terry Practhett




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