re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad Router It ain't clusters... The product announcement says its single hop through a cross bar...
>>>>> Chiaro's Optical Phased Array™ (OPA) switch fabric coupled with the Global Scheduler provides a simple, intuitive ground-breaking single-hop optical crossbar architecture, which offers for the first time a high-performance architecture where performance is independent of size >>>>>
re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad Routerhey man - i heard what you said yesterday. modular scalability is nice to talk about and the difference between capacity and what is being deployed is understood. we saw backbones grow from ds3 to oc3 to oc12 to oc48 to oc192 in a short period of time (6 month jumps) when there was real growth and a lot of money being thrown at infrastructure. i respectfully submit that not many people would put 315 x OC192 in a box (scalable modular virtual router) even if it has the best modular scalability, any port to any port non-blocking, full featured, line rate, priority/QoS/buffering, packet sequence kept through the fabric and no single point of failure platform. what is the killer app that is going to drive this need? how many backbones need this scale? price out a 315 x OC192 fabric at todays prices. what is the revenue source to justify this capital expense? i don't think that continued access growth, limited vpn's, frame/atm conversion, and broadband to the home/business for email, web surfing and xbox are going to require this scale. we can easily see 3-5 more years of slow growth and there will probably be the same two players in the game as everyone else dies a slow death either alone or through the acquisition by lu, nt, ericy, ala, or whoever imho.
re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad Router>>It ain't clusters... The product announcement says its single hop through a cross bar...
Well, the only difference is a single stage versus a two-stage approach. Oh, and that it is an optical array versus electronic cross-bar.
The only credible difference this can make is in terms of latency and possibly scalability. Two-stage cross-bar architectures have been around for a long time in other applications, so it is a well-known technology.
Again, if the only problem they are trying to solve is with scalability, personally I believe there are far more efficient (in terms of space and density) solutions available. But I haven't seen the product yet so maybe I just need to drink the koolaid.
re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad Router>> The real question is who needs 315 OC-192's right now anyway?
or when will someone need 315 x OC192 layer3 in a box? ---------------- I wrote a message on the subject when you asked this yesterday. What the service providers are saying to the core router vendors is "give us modular scalability". The absolute numbers mean much less than being able to demonstrate a system that can be upgraded in a conceptually simple way beyond a single rack. Juniper and cisco are working on exactly the same problem with the HFR and the T640-with-switch.
re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad Router"What the service providers are saying to the core router vendors is "give us modular scalability".
They may be saying that to Juniper and Cisco. What they are saying to the startups is: o Handle any traffic I throw at you without dropping packets or crashing. o Be able to handle all the protocols I want, even ones that aren't yet finalized. o Interface with Cisco and Juniper without any problems even if they don't follow all the standards exactly right. o Have a CLI that our staff is familiar with so they don't have to learn anything new to use your equipment. (Which means, copy the Cisco CLI including all its undocumented behavior).
If you can do all this AND you have an interesting modular scalability argument, then MAYBE you will be considered IF the service provider happens to be approaching a buying cycle.
It is not an easy time to be a startup introducing a new concept in core routing.
re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad RouterI need 315 OC-192 links. Our neighborhood wants to run streaming TV, voice, live action cameras, and video on demand. I have one of these routers in my basement. Great central heating...
I agree, but I gather it's one of those cold war battles. "We can blow up the world 100 times". "Oh yeah, we can do it 200!!" People like the biggest, baddest mo-fo they can get their hands on, and all these guys are battling for that title.
Caspian, what is up with them? That's the biggest waste of $400M I've ever heard of. Come to think of it, they're the ONLY one I've heard of who could get MORE funding after their $250M ran out; and still in stealth mode!!!
re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad RouterProcket is on it's way to becoming a memory. Now that Verizon seems to have chosen Juniper's ERX for it's IP-VPN solution, the beginning of the end is near for Procket and other start-ups. Juniper on the other hand will take a nice bite out of Cisco's market share on the edge.
Several vendors have tried this clustering stuff in vain. Avici talked about this but have they deployed any routers in such a configuration?
Even Juniper's Matrix technology is a completely blocking solution when you have the "so called clustering" with the optical interconnect.
And Cisco has been talking about clustering their 124xx for the past 4 years. I still remember the exact date - November 1999 when they announced the "world's first OC-192 wavelength" turned up at Qwest (never mind it was an OC-192 laser on OC-48 card) they had this press release talking about clustering as many as 16 GSRs through a central fabric. I am still waiting with bated breath.......
re: Chiaro Debuts a Big, Bad RouterI agree, Procket may become a memory soon. I heard from a friend that many engineers at Procket had to take a pay cut. Any one elso heard any thing about pay cuts at Procket ??
It ain't clusters... The product announcement says its single hop through a cross bar...
>>>>>
Chiaro's Optical Phased Array™ (OPA) switch fabric coupled with the Global Scheduler provides a simple, intuitive ground-breaking single-hop optical crossbar architecture, which offers for the first time a high-performance architecture where performance is independent of size
>>>>>
Sounds like a bitch'en, switching technology....