[sathackr]

What ISP needs a single flow to exceed 1gb? I would venture to say most non-storage networks don't have single flow requirements in the Gb/s.

I can buy 3 CCR routers and run OSPF/BGP/etc... on them to provide redundancy. The likelyhood of all 3 failing at once is slim and I'm still an order of magnitude cheaper than an equivalent Cisco/Juniper setup. Yes, dynamic routing takes a few seconds to converge, so an unplanned failure will result in a short disruption in connectivity, but planned maintenance can be done seamlessly, including power supply replacement(since only one model has hot-swappable power supplies). I do not deploy any single-power models and have not had a single router fail in the 2 years I have been deploying them. I have had a $6500 Cisco ASA fail, twice.

I am a fan of all 3. Cisco and Juniper make great equipment. So does Mikrotik. Each one is a tool that must be used properly and the right one needs to be selected for the job and requirements.

[walrus01]

Thing is, it's not an 'order of magnitude' different in price... Three $2500 CCRs vs, what? I know somebody who recently bought a whole Juniper MX960 for around $10,000. For a serious ISP that is a big jump in capability and resiliency.

If looking at used/refurb core routing platforms these days, anything that is not capable of being upgraded to a reasonable density of 100GbE is selling for very affordable prices now. Even systems that are fully modular and redundant and capable of more than 60 10GbE interfaces in one chassis, such as the MX480 or MX960. Or an ASR9006/ASR9010 with first generation linecards.

[sathackr]

I'm seeing used, empty, MX480s in the range of $13k on ebay[1]. Plus $3k for add in 10g cards[2]

And I have to pay for support if I want to get updates, security patches, etc... [3]

And I need 2+ of them if I want to multi-home.

So I'm buying a used device of unknown history, that someone is selling for unknown reasons(could be a working pull, could be something with an obscure problem that will surface 3 months later), without a hardware warranty or support, with outdated software, and going to trust my entire network with it and it's internal redundancy. If I could get 3 for that price I might consider it.

I like the SpaceX approach. Don't trust one big expensive engine to get you where you're going. It probably won't fail, but if it does, you're toast. Trust 9 cheaper ones and have enough redundancy that if/when one does fail, you shrug and keep going and just replace it before the next launch.

[1] http://www.ebay.com/itm/221776643106

[2] http://www.ebay.com/itm/122004198861

[3] http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/en_US/release-independent/ju...

[FireBeyond]

Comcast fiber is 3gbps (sold as 2gbps) and provisioned via a Juniper box to you which acts a bridge alone, with SFP+ port giving 2gbps, and a GigE port separate.

[sathackr]

That still doesn't define a requirement for >1gb/s in a single flow.

A flow is a single connection, such as downloading a file from a single IP address.

When you download a single file from multiple sources (such as with Bittorrent), each connection to each source is a flow.