An open source enterprise-class router from Vyatta methinks will be a disruptive kick for today’s manufacturers. Just read Om’s comments and agree fully.
The scramble for open source in networking comes because two primal forces tearing the old telecom order apart. First, the Internet-based technologies are replacing the closed legacy phone systems, thus helping the convergence of computer and the phone systems. In old times, in order to build a networking box, companies would design specialized chips, and run specialized software on them to get the best performance. Now you can buy extremely powerful processors like Advanced Micro Devices’ Opteron chips for a few hundred dollars, run special networking software on them, and get similar performance. There are nearly half-a-dozen open source projects that capitalize on the cheap processing power.
Vyatta’s product is base upon XORP (extensible open router platform), the hardware is pretty generic.
Hey Om, thanks for the heads-up.
