Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 12:04:58 -0500 From: dennis@etinc.com (dennis) To: Peter Berger <peterb@telerama.lm.com> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Multi-Port Async Cards Message-ID: <199602011704.MAA19726@etinc.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Peter Burger writes.... >Joe, > >The observation that a FreeBSD box acting as a router is "mostly idle" is >bogus; since routing takes place entirely in the kernel and "idleness" is >a measurement of the number of processes in userland waiting to run, I'm >not sure it's an accurate measure. > >The real issues are 1) A Cisco will give you better interface performance >than almost any PC; 2) the port density of a Cisco is much better, and 3) >you can't be tempted to do stupid things with a Cisco like "Hey, let's >put a web server on our router today." > >Cisco's customer response is pretty much second to none. We've never had >to wait more than next-day for spares, when we need them. This is wrong on all 3 counts. Experience tells otherwise. A similarly priced unit with a Web server will easily outperform a Cisco. Cisco's method of handling dumb serial controllers for hi-speed lines takes much away from its apparent architectural advantages, plus the use of a slow processor (which is consumed handling serial/ethernet traffic) makes any processing task (like filtering) very slow compared to a (say) Pentium solution. With a PC, basically, you get flexibility and power for a much lower cost. For Example, you can't add a 100Mbs port to a Cisco for $134! Dennis ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emerging Technologies, Inc. http://www.etinc.com Synchronous Communications Cards and Routers For Discriminating Tastes. 56k to T1 and beyond. Frame Relay, PPP, HDLC, and X.25 for BSD/OS, FreeBSD and LINUX
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199602011704.MAA19726>