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Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 11:53:16 -0500
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To: hackers@freebsd.org
From: dennis@etinc.com (dennis)
Subject: Re: Frame Relay and FreeBSD 
Cc: isp@freebsd.org
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>One thing to keep in mind is that PCs also come in 4"x4"x4" cubes that
>are expandible via PC-104 bus cards.  Something like this could easily
>stack like firewood to fill a small space in little time.  Put a
>ramdisk or flashram card inot this mix, run FreeBSD on it and you have
>a nice little box.  I believe that these boxes are 100% PC compatible,
>but am not 100% positive.  They are showing up in places like the
>Circuit Cellar magazine.  I don't hink you'll find a pentium on one of
>these boxes, but I recall seeing 386 and 486 in them.
>

The real point here is that many "routers" are just re-packaged PCs...the
"smaller is better" argument applies if you're willing to make the necessary
trade-offs. Frankly, I'd rather have the benefits of a good sized hard drive and
expandabiltiy than to save a cubic foot of space. Rememberr that your talking
about 2 very different kinds of users....service providers and end users. From
an end users perspective there is no way that any stand-alone router can give
me more utility than my single-box freebsd server/router/gateway. Even if
service
providers use the "big net rack mount" type units in your facility, they can
score 
points with their customers by giving them a rather impressive server/router
solution. And with protocols like Frame relay there are 50-100 times the
number of
end user units than there are service provider units.


dennis
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