RE: Any serious production servers yet?

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    I couldn't have put it better myself.

    Vis-a-vie network performance, my goal for DragonFly is to have 'good'
    performance.  But I think it is a complete waste of time to try to
    squeeze every last erg out of the network subsystem like FreeBSD has.
    We aren't trying to compete with Cisco, and nobody in their right mind
    would take a turnkey BSD or linux-based system over a Cisco (or other
    piece of high-end networking gear) to route multi-gigabits/sec of
    traffic.   I still think we can get close to FreeBSD's rated performance,
    eventually, but I am not willing to create a mess of hacks and crazy
    configuration options to turn DragonFly into the ultimate ether switch
    when I can purchase one off the shelf for a few hundred bucks.

    I think the last time I tried to use a general purpose UNIX OS as an
    actual 'router' was in 1994.  We used two BSDi boxes (and later FreeBSD
    boxes) to route the two T1's that BEST Internet had when we had just 
    started up.  It was a horror, frankly.  Hardware bugs in the ethernet
    cards and even in the T1 card required a lot of hacking to work around,
    and trying to run BGP with gated was even worse.

    Back then 'real' networking hardware was bulky and expensive.  Today,
    though, there is no excuse.  It's cheap (and even cheaper on E-Bay),
    and far more reliable then a general purpose PC.  

    If someone is trying to route multi-gigabits worth of traffic then
    the infrastructure is clearly important enough to warrent purchasing
    dedicated networking gear.  If someone isn't trying to go all out, 
    then a general purpose OS might be adequate, if still not as reliable.

    So all I can say to Mr Thom in that regard is: Stop trying to fit a
    square peg into a round hole and just buy the appropriate gear for your
    network infrastructure needs.

						-Matt