Evaluating Midokura’s MidoNet Solution

This article is the first in a set of articles that will walk through the evaluation of Midokura's MidoNet product.  In the first article we will discuss Midokura's solution, what it is made of, how it works and what expectations have been set with regard to performance and the solution it aims to solve. An Overview of Midokura: SDN Startup Midokura launched this week at th … [Read more...]

Network Hardware and SDN

How Does SDN Fit Into The Virtual Data Center? One thing that needs to be cleared up is the definition of  Network or Networking Hardware.  In the definition of SDN from ONF they discuss the decoupling of the Control and Data Plane with the Data Plane being defined as Network Hardware.  Here is where things can get confusing. What is Network Hardware? Wikipedia says the fo … [Read more...]

The Vyatta Cloud Router Story

Vyatta and their approach to Cloud Routers A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Scott Sneddon, Cloud Solutions Architect at Vyatta Inc.  I've known Scott since the late 1990's when he and I both worked for Exodus Communications. Vyatta is one of the few full featured software based routing vendors in the market today.  Their product is a mix of OpenSource and … [Read more...]

The Virtual Data Center Reality

Virtual Data Centers start to become reality. With the recent announcement of the CSR 1000v from Cisco, there are now two commercial Virtual Data Center stories (three if we look at the VMWare vCNS products and use one of the other vendors products for a router) Cisco and Vyatta. What is a Virtual Data Center?  There will be a lot of different answers but in my view it co … [Read more...]

The Cisco Cloud Router Story

Cloud Router : Cisco Now that VMWorld is over, there is a lot of industry buzz about VMWare, Nicira, Vyatta, Cisco and the Cloud Router in the networking space.  Cisco had previously released the virtual Nexus 1000v switch, which provides a more flexible way to handle inter machine connectivity and the virtual ASA 1000v firewall.  While the Cloud Service Router CSR 1000v had be … [Read more...]

Cisco ASR 1000 Series Router Testing and Analysis Report Now Available

Cisco ASR 1000 Series Router Testing and Analysis Report Now Available for no cost Router Analysis is proud to release the full ASR1000 Series Router Testing and Analysis Report (RA-070112-03).  The report is available for no cost. The report covers the ASR1000 Series Routers with RP2 and ESP40.  During our testing, we tested both the ASR1004 and 1006 platforms and found no … [Read more...]

Product Review: Edge-Core ECS4610-50T

Edge-Core ECS4610-50T IWNetworks, the US distributor of Edge-Core switches provided Router Analysis with a ECS4610-50T Gigabit Aggregation switch to test in our Gigabit Aggregation Switch Shootout.  While we were unpacking and setting the switch up for testing we decided to do a quick review. Product Description The Edge-Core ECS4610 series is a stackable Gig … [Read more...]

Cisco ASR 1000 Testing Results

Router Analysis testing results for the Cisco ASR 1000. Router Analysis tested the Cisco ASR 1004 for performance, scalability and features.  The following is a list of items tested: IP forwarding rate Minimum Packet Size (64 bytes) With ACLs (permit any any) With uRPF With QoS With Netflow Packet IMIX 1500 Byte Packets (Fabric … [Read more...]

Cisco 7200 VXR Replacements

History of the Cisco 7200 The Cisco 7200 Series routers have been at the Enterprise Edge for almost two decades.  Even though the first 7200 Series router came out in 1996.  Cisco has kept the 7200 Series routers up to date by releasing a new chassis (The 7200VXR in 2002) and continuing to release new Network Processing Engines (NPEs). The current NPE-G2 processor (released … [Read more...]

Gigabit Aggregation Top of Rack Switch Shootout

Gigabit Aggregation Top of Rack Switch Testing When we released our Enterprise Top of Rack Switch test, we did not expect the amount of feedback we would get. The feedback included requests that we focus on both enterprise and service providers, along with requests to cover more vendors including Dell, Juniper, Edge-Core, Brocade and host of others. Hardware To Be Teste … [Read more...]