Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!lll-winken!decwrl!ucbvax!proteon.com!dlj
From: oberman@rogue.llnl.gov (Oberman, Kevin)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: IP routers
Keywords: routers
Message-ID: <51020@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 5 Mar 90 07:41:07 GMT
References: <9002220047.AA02485@WLBR.IMSD.CONTEL.COM>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: oberman@rogue.llnl.gov
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-Engineering
Lines: 50

In article <9002281630.AA23536@sonny.proteon.com>, dlj@proteon.com (Daniel L. Jones) writes...
> 
>   Instead of overloading a host with the communciations
>processing of an ever expanding network, dedicate a network device
>to handle the job.   
>   All three router companies that were mentioned, make good products.
>But Proteon has specific advantages: 

[Sales pitch for Proteon omitted.]

I'm not really fond of seeing this list used for blatant advertizing, so I'll
have to put in my $0.02.

I am currently involved in the selection of a "standard" router for our
Laboratory network and havbe spent a lot of time looking at the various
available products. ALL have some significant advantages and I don't think
Proteon's are anything overwhelming.

If you are planning to aquire any router type product, I suggest that you look
at the analysis of routers done by Scott Bradner at Harvard. He ran some
(admittedly) less than comprehensive tests on Proteon, cisco, NSC, and
Wellfleet boxes and the numbers were eye opening.

I'm not including any of the results of the tests as I feel that without a
proper explanation of the methodology used and the inclusion of most, if not
all of the numbers generated in the testing, any references would be unfairly
out of context. But I think I can say that Proteon would not be likely to
include this report in their sales literature.

Speed is far from the only (or even the most significant) critereon for the
selection of a router, but it is one of the more important if one is planned
for a busy network link. Other things to worry about is the abiltiy of the
router to handle all of the required protocols. On out LAN we support
AppleTalk, DECnet, DOD IP, OSI, LAT, and IPX. The proper routing/bridging of
all of these protocols is very significant if your net uses them.

If I had the numbers of the sales reps for cisco and Wellfleet, I'd put them
here, but I don't have them handy. So I'll just emphasize that you should be
VERY careful in a router procurement. It may have drastic impact on your net
for a ong time to come. And there are a lot of complex factors that have
significant impact on what the "right" choice is for you. It's a lot more than
just price and performance. And I have yet to find a "perfect" router.

					R. Kevin Oberman
					Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
					Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov
   					(415) 422-6955

Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing
and probably don't really know anything useful about anything.