[jr299]

If one were interested in building something like this themselves or getting into the market, where would be a good place to start as far as acquiring hardware, learning about asic systems, and the software behind these systems?

I've been building my own managed firewall and router systems for awhile on commodity hardware, freebsd, and nice nics and would like to look into taking it to the next level and perhaps starting a business in this area.

[smutticus]

The networking world is quickly moving away from custom silicon. Because of companies like Broadcom and Marvel it's getting easier and easier to buy/order ASICs instead of designing them. Cisco announced this year I think that all their lower-end switches will be using Broadcom.

So go check out what these 2 companies have in terms of switch on a chip type ASICs. AFAIK no one has come out with a multiport PCIx card that can do L3 switching between its ports. That would be neat. And I think it's just a matter of time till someone does. I would buy such a card if it worked under Linux or FreeBSD just to play with.

[nschrenk]

NetFPGA might fit what you're looking for: http://netfpga.org/