Re: re(4) update

[David Cuthbert <dacut@xxxxxxxxx>]

Matthew Dillon wrote:
>     [If] I actually HAD a critical application that required that kind of
>     routing or bridging I would buy a dedicated piece of hardware to handle
>     it, not try to use a general purpose operating system running on 
>     commodity hardware.

Ironically, at [big e-commerce company], where I work, we're moving away 
from the dedicated load balancing hardware, though not for any of the 
reasons you're discussing.  Our traffic volume is high and heterogeneous 
enough to trigger subtle bugs in the LB firmware.  Getting debug 
information is next to impossible when they just start dropping packets 
on the floor.  They're also really expensive, so the vendors' solution 
-- "You need to buy more of our hardware" -- makes our finance guys cringe.

Rather than replace them with dedicated boxes, though, we'll probably 
just remove that layer entirely -- clients will negotiate leases onto a 
single host for a given period of time, with initial discovery through a 
broadcast mechanism.