>After posting I wondered how far my liberal use of the word "core"
>would get me :) To be honest, very few terms in any vernacular can
>stand up to the rigorous hair splitting that debate inspires.
>Lexical precision just isn't an important concept to the marketing
>folks in this business.
Seriously, Peter, I am dealing with the edge versus core issue in
quite a number of internal and external forums. We specifically have
a session at the Internet Society meeting in June that will summarize
some thinking in this area.
My working definitions are functional, not marketing, and thus have
little to do with much of the marketing FUD. I also distinguish
between a set of customer definitions and a set of provider
definitions.
A provider access router, with respect to service providers, is at
the customer premises, and may be operated either by the customer or
the provider.
The customer may have an internal network of substantial size. In
that case, the customer access router is closest to the end hosts,
customer core routers link campuses or sites, and distribution
routers perform concentration and translation functions between
access and core. External connectivity is generally a function of
the distribution tier, although, if all otherwise unknown traffic
defaults to a central external router, that router might be in the
customer core.
A provider edge device (more than just router, including things like
load distributors) establishes the demarcation between service
customer and service provider. The edge device is of substantial
intelligence, and may be "fed" by collection devices such as DSLAMs,
broadband service gateways, dial-in servers, etc.
A provider core router speaks to the provider-side interfaces of edge devices.
A border router, to use one term suggested by dre here, is at the
same hierarchical level as the edge router, but its role is to
connect the provider with other providers, not with direct customers.
One service provider may be a customer of another, higher-tier
provider. In such cases, the router at the lower-level provider is a
border router with respect to its own AS, but is an provider access
router with respect to the higher-level provider.
>
>Fortunately, the debate will be settled in the traditional
>capitalist manner where technical superiority rarely plays a
>dominant role. Were it not so, debates of this nature would likely
>stagnate the markets to such a point as to render them moot.
>
>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
>On 3/16/2001 at 7:05 PM Howard C. Berkowitz wrote:
>
>>>With all this Juniper stuff flying around, I remind you all to
>>>consider that core routing represents something like 16% of Cisco's
>>>revenue stream and Juniper only make core routers.
>>>
>>>Pete
>>
>>
>>Putting on my chef's hat, I have several tools that variously remove
>>apple cores, leaving the rest intact, or also slice the remaining
>>part. Does this mean that Victorinox, Sabatier, etc., are
>>significant players in the core market?
>>
>>Those ...routers...that also slice the fruit into segments, clearly,
>>are distributed edge processors in the same housing as the core
>>router.
>>
>>As far as the charges and countercharges about the Lightreading
>>tests, the Master of Networks asked the Novice,
>>
>> "Grasshopper, what is the difference between a seller of used cars
>> and a networking marketdroid?"
>>
>> "I know not, sensei. Enlighten me."
>>
> > "The seller of used cars knows when he is lying."
Other scholars add that the seller of used cars also knows how to drive one.
> >In a different current controversy, one wonders if new.net has any
>>conception of the operational impact their product may have. See
>>continuing flames on NANOG.
>>
>>It may be necessary to bring in a mediator to deal with the question
>>of whether Cisco is faster than Juniper, or vice versa. Perhaps Bill
> >Clinton can help explain the meaning of "is" in this context.
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