Re: [OT] NIC 1000Base-SX needed

On Mon, 16 May 2011, Michelle Konzack wrote:
> I need only six 1000Base-SX ports in ONE ROUTER.
> (prefered Duap-Port NICs)

It is a software router?  And you want it to route 12Gbps?  I thought
you wanted to plug a bunch of servers on a 1000Base-SX switch.

You better not expect a lot from that box, unless you're willing to
really go very far (at which point you're strongly encouraged to just
buy a Cisco or juniper *hardware* switch-router).

It is not the throughput, it is the PPS workload that will kill it.  You
really don't use software routers with normal hardware for anything
above 1Mpps (and even that requires a seriously modern multi-core
server, which won't come cheap and can actually be far more expensive
than a small switch-router).

You're also likely to need kernel 2.6.38, but YMMV.

At least get three i82576 cards.  You will need intelligent interrupt
mitigation, and horizontal (per-core) scalability.  Do not virtualize,
and prepare yourself for some serious kernel (and NIC) tuning.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh