[Gllug] Content switches using Linux

[Huw Lynes]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 13:14:50 +0100
Richard Cottrill <richard_c at tpg.com.au> wrote:
 
> - Will a PCI bus come close to holding this sort of throughput?

No. Sad to say but PCI really isn't that great at high-speed I/O. In order to
get more speed you will need multiple buses, the faster the better.

Some numbers for you:
PCI32 33MHz = 133MB/s
PCI32 66MHz = 266MB/s
PCI64 33MHz = 266MB/s
PCI64 66MHz = 533MB/s
PCI-X 133MHz = 1066MB/s 
That of course is in an ideal world.
 
> - I can imagine a number of smaller machines would have a better chance 
> (I'm thinking blade servers here); but could it really work? I can 
> imagine a number of management headaches...

Is the content switch really that exspensive? .... I've just re-read your
email, especially the bit where you say "hundreds of thousands". Ok so you can
reasonably think about a quad CPU box with multiple fast buses, PCI-X for
preference if you are thinking x86. It might be worth looking to see if
another hardware architecture has what you need in terms of I/O bandwidth.

Of course if you don't need 6Gigabit constant throughput then things rapidly
start becoming reasonable.

Given that a big chasis core switch only costs aroung one-hundred grand fully
loaded what the hell is this nokia switch supposed to do thats so clever?


-- 
| Huw Lynes               | The Moving Picture Company  |
| System Administrator    | 127 Wardour Street          |
|.........................| London, W1F 0NL             | 



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