[aklug] Re: Free software switching and routing

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 6:50 PM, Christopher Howard
<christopher.howard@frigidcode.com> wrote:
> Hey guys, I was wondering - can you buy routers and smart switches, for
> medium to large business needs, that run some kind of free software? Or
> are you stuck with using proprietary Cisco and Juniper OSes? (That's the
> only thing I've seen where I work.)
>
> I know, of course, that you can turn any crappy PC into a router with
> the right Linux software packages, and I've heard of about a dozen
> different DIY router distros. But what about the situation where you
> have lots of money to buy networking equipment, but no time to put
> together custom software and hardware?

There's been a lively discussion about that very topic over in NANOG land.

http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2014-January/063290.html

The contentious consensus appears to be that if you're doing something
carrier-grade, don't try it ... but that at the small-shop level (and
for NANOG, "small" may mean "a few thousand customers"), it might be
OK, but still pretty risky (largely because of the spectre of
customer-affecting outages and support SLAs thereof). A number of
vendors are mentioned, with people piping up about their respective
"degrees of freedom", so to speak. Read the thread and judge for
yourself for more info.

Royce
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Received on Mon Jan 6 19:02:36 2014