[Atlas-anchors-pilot] HW specs: the choice of *two*

[Aleksi Suhonen]

Hi,

On 09/25/2012 04:07 PM, Vesna Manojlovic wrote:
> We have presented you with "Configuration Version A":
> Dell Poweredge R320,
> 3.5" disks,
> 3 year service contract,
> 3,200.00 Euro's,

I'm sorry to pick up on the HW spec discussion this late, but these 
concerns about potentially installing the anchor somewhere within the 
TREX infrastructure didn't come to me until now.

All that has been said about the network connections in the hardware 
spec is "one onboard NIC" and this worries me because:

* Is it 1GbE or 10GbE?
* Is it Broadcom or Intel or something else?
* Will it work OK with VLANs?
* Would the 10GbE be RJ45, SFP+ or something else?

10GbE would give a chance for much better measurement resolution. 
However, if the anchor would be placed behind TREX's routers, the 
benefit would be lost as TREX's routers are only 1GbE.

If on the other hand the anchor would be capable of peering directly 
with ISPs on our peering VLAN, the ethernet chip vendor becomes an 
issue: Our peering VLAN is mtu9000 and it has been our experience that 
drivers for Broadcom chips tend to stop forwarding traffic after periods 
ranging from 15 minutes to 15 days when used with jumbo frames.

Of course, is there are to be several services inside separate VMs 
running on the host then the different VMs could be attached to 
different locations in the topology, some behind routers and some that 
will be doing the routing for themselves. This could be accomplished by 
using VLAN tagging on the single onboard NIC or by using several NICs 
without tagging.

If there will be a 10GbE connection then at TREX we can support and 
provide SFP+ twinax cables or 10GBASE-SR with fibre, but we can't 
support 10GBASE-T aka Cat6/7 cable with RJ45 connectors at this time.

As the primary purpose of these devices will be to measure the network, 
I guess I just wanted reassurance that the network interfaces of the 
device have been given enough thought. Different Atlas Anchor hosts will 
of course have different concerns, and especially non-IXP hosts will be 
offering a completely different network topology. I hope this post 
sparks some thoughts in other interested hosters as well before it's too 
late to affect the hardware decisions.

-- 
	+358 4567 02048 / http://www.trex.fi/
	Aleksi Suhonen / TREX  Tampere Region Exchange Oy

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