An excellent post from Yahoo regarding terabit routers. MRVC announced a project in development in the Conference call.
Terrabit Routers...
SidneyKarton
(25/M/Jersey)
Jul 31 1998
9:04PM EDT
I guess as you know, there are no terrabit routers existing
*right now*. All the talk is about future plans and products
in development. So, talking about the fastest routers out there
(forget terrabit for a sec), we have
-- CSCO: The 12000 handles 622Mbps, with I think a maximum
port density of 16 per box. This is way way below terrabit and
also below Lucent's Packetstar. In addition, the 12000 has
problems even in maintaining the 622 Mbps on each interface.
Cisco has a true wirespeed multi-Gigabit router in the works.
Of course, because of brand recognition, Cisco will still sell
whatever they make. I would say, Terrabit for them is atleast
a 2 years away.
To compete with the brand name of Cisco, you have to not only
make better products, faster to the market, but also convince
the carriers to choose something that they are not confident
about. Thats the key.
-- Ascend: Apparently, Ascend's GRF has similar capacities as
Cisco 12000 and maybe even more robust, however, its not
selling because of the simple reason that they didnt do a good
job selling it. Technologically speaking, I would put them
above Cisco
-- Lucent: The PacketStar series offers upto 128 Gigabits per
second with OC-48 interfaces (2.5G), and apparently is true
wirespeed as all the packet lookup functions are designed for
worst case behavior. It also has more levels of service than
the 12000. They have a Terrabit plan within a year or so. Their
big problem would be to convince carriers that are legit in
the data business.
-- Bay and 3Com: Nothing exciting to talk about in this space.
Lots of start-ups are building high speed routers. None terrabit
in the near future (say 1 year or so), but very close. They
include Juniper, Avici, Torrent, Nexabit, Ipsilon etc.
So, the key for MRV is to finish this project FAST! They better
have a box with 12-15 months. Else, they will have the problem
that Ascend has in replacing Cisco's dominance...
Another trend to follow might be the fact that companies like
Cisco and Ascend are pushing for MPLS ie. routers at the
periphery and ATM in the backbone. So, MRV also has to come
up with the Terrabit box before MPLS becomes a reality, else
they will have to compete with carrier ATM switches as well--
and that will be even more difficult.
In summary, this is a very very hot field and lots of companies
have invested heavily in it, small and big. So, the crucial
thing is who is the first to market... Nevertheless, its good
that MRV is atleast trying to attack that market...
Hope that helps..
Later
PS. tera = earth ?? No!! Terra = 10 to the power 12 or a
million million |
