Designing and Developing Scalable IP Networks
Chapter One
Hardware Design
Hardware design may, at first sight, seem to be something over which the network architect
or designer has no control. It would appear, therefore, that it plays very little part
in the design of a scalable Internet Provider (IP) network. Despite this, an understanding
of the various architectures employed by the hardware vendors can influence the
choice of hardware. Thus, the choice of hardware will inevitably affect your network
designs.
There are only a finite number of architectures on which hardware designs are based.
Most vendors of core Internet routers today use various Application Specific Integrated
Circuits (ASIC) and/or network processors designed specifically for the purpose of performing
IP and MPLS lookups, applying access control/firewall functionality, enforcing
policy and applying Quality of Service (QoS). However, there are significant diff ... read full excerpt from Designing and Developing Scalable IP Networks ebook
