Confusion with routers

[bob]

Ive been preparing to find what it takes to kill some SOHO routers, since I have a friend who honestly belevies a linksys home router is better than a big clunker 2U rackmount that im getting off ebay. I figured, hell, why not do a review of some routers and see what it takes to kill them, monitor temps and speculate on what their problems were and how to avoid failuire.

So ive been here sitting and googling, I beleive it was Wikipedia that stated the downside to those home-routers was their low cost, forcing them to do all of the routing on a software-level (because hardware-routing wasnt doable on $70.00 and lower routers).

I started thinking, arn't all routers basically handling everything on the software-level? What exactly is the difference between a SOHO software-router and a large cisco hardware-router? Or is this just another moment in Wikipedia were someone has posted incorrect information?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

What exactly is the difference between a SOHO software-router and a large cisco hardware-router? Or is this just another moment in Wikipedia were someone has posted incorrect information?

I would say "some" of the differences are...
*Features available...business grade routers will have a richer set of features
*Stability...business grade tends to be made with better quality hardware/components, *and their firmware will have longer development time...testing, compatibility, make sure more of the features work problem free. More time baking in the oven sort of speak.
*Higher horsepower....since they are business grade..assumed to run under higher loads, and assumed to run more tasks. So a faster CPU and more memory to be able to do these things.

 

[bob]

I would say "some" of the differences are...
*Features available...business grade routers will have a richer set of features
*Stability...business grade tends to be made with better quality hardware/components, *and their firmware will have longer development time...testing, compatibility, make sure more of the features work problem free. More time baking in the oven sort of speak.
*Higher horsepower....since they are business grade..assumed to run under higher loads, and assumed to run more tasks. So a faster CPU and more memory to be able to do these things.

That doesnt answer my question. I always thought of software-routing to be something like windows Internet connection sharing, and hardware routers to be things dedicated to the task. The article stated that the SOHO routers are software-routers.

 

[ktwebb]

SOHO routers are hardware routers. They all have software. If the hardware (and the software) are dedicated to that functionality, routing between two networks, then it's a hardware router. IMO anyway. Now that is not to say a Linksys is on par with a Nortel, Cisco, or any other enterprise router. Not at all. But a budget sub 100 dollar NAT is not a software router. WinProxy, ICS, Sygate, etc....those are software routers. They are after market/third party software solutions that sit on a machine that does many things.

 

[movax]

It's pretty simple.

You may notice that most (if not all SOHO routers) have no fans. 100% passive. The high-end MIMO/Pre-N ones will usually have a very visible heatsink or similar.

Now, you may notice that rackmount hardware has fans up the wazoo. One, they live in a rack, so they can be as noisy as they want, but two, the faster CPU and higher loads it has to cope with necessitate better cooling.

A SOHO router for the most part can't stand up to the task of connecting many, many clients, or, basically simultaneous connections, which is why some will cry and crash when torrenting. Rackmount routers have a dedicated CPU, I believe some have amounts of RAM, and are designed for heavy loads without dying.

 

[tdg]

All routers are using software in reality to do all the functions. Even my business grade Cisco PIX 501 that's doing firewall and routing duty is basically a tiny computer, complete with an AMD 133 MHz CPU, two NIC's, a serial port and some LED's. Difference between it and a consumer/SOHO grade router is the quality of hardware components, but to a larger degree that hardware is told what to do via a commercial quality OS on it, not a "it works" grade OS.

 

[Orinthical]

The answer to your question has already been stated - all routers run some grade of software on them, even the ultra-high end equipment. The difference is in the quality of the components used, both hardware and software. As has been hinted at most SOHO routers are merely under-powered for connecting a business or effectively handling hearty torrent-type activities.

With that being said though there are a few routers in the SOHO price range that perform like champs in both the small business world and the home. My DGL-4100 stands up to even the most demanding torrents and the -only- time I ever have to reboot or shut it down is when I am doing network maintenance. The last time I shut it down, the uptime was 47 days... pretty impressive for a product in the SOHO range. The Linksys RV082+ series is another example of this though they are getting a little bit outside the SOHO price range imho.

One of the best ways to test a soho router though would be to throw it into the middle of a linux distro torrent or perhaps Open Office.

 

[bob]

The answer to your question has already been stated - all routers run some grade of software on them, even the ultra-high end equipment.

Thanks, thats what I had figured, And thats exactly the answer I was looking for.

One of the best ways to test a soho router though would be to throw it into the middle of a linux distro torrent or perhaps Open Office.

My plan was to have two PCs, one on the LAN side and one on the WAN side. Im fairly sure its possible to run a torrent over a LAN, as long as both PCs can get online. I *should* be able to load down the router with as many connections as I like. Either that, or the webserver stress test tool from microsoft, where you can specifiy how many connections/clients to simulate.

 

[Orinthical]

My plan was to have two PCs, one on the LAN side and one on the WAN side. Im fairly sure its possible to run a torrent over a LAN, as long as both PCs can get online. I *should* be able to load down the router with as many connections as I like. Either that, or the webserver stress test tool from microsoft, where you can specifiy how many connections/clients to simulate.

The latter may work efficiently but you're going to be severely limiting your testing capabilities to that which the single client on either end can push out/take. Actually using the various routers and downloading a base file from a strong torrent, like Ubuntu Linux or OpenOffice, would be best. This way you can establish a real-world baseline. There are plenty of different Ubuntu releases to download and really max-out the routers. Grab the 32bit, 64bit and PPC version of the desktop release at the same itme... that should max things out nicely. IF not, grab the 32bit, 64bit and PPC versions of the server release as well. Throw in an OpenOffice torrent to spice things up... Tada... those that aren't up to the job should be quite fried by now; those that survive are the winners.

 

[Kaos]

Another difference would be the security features available on the software of higher end routers, higher end routers almost always have a larger memory for log files and such as well (unless you're using a syslog server)

In most corporate/enterprise environments ive been in routers get a few less duties than soho. Soho routers get a little bit of firewall, a little bit of dhcp, some dns ability, wireless. Ive almost always seen separate boxes for dns(usually uses the AD server), dhcp, a separate firewall etc.

Stress testing...id say let a few people try to ddos you ....i kid. But definately try to push as much traffic through it as possible over as many ports as possible. Id say run some torrents, an ftp, some http downloads, go to a heavy irc channel, run an online game thats bandwidth intensive...most fps's will fit the bill. Do an aim file transfer, get skype or some other VOIP application running, stream some music/video. split that over a few pc's behind a router and it will be even better than just one pc generating the traffic.

You're router will be begging for mercy in no time.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

That doesnt answer my question. I always thought of software-routing to be something like windows Internet connection sharing, and hardware routers to be things dedicated to the task. The article stated that the SOHO routers are software-routers.

What do you think "flashing the firmware" does? Upgrades the OS.

Stress testing the routers....Ixia's IXChariot.

 

[Frank4d]

Ive been preparing to find what it takes to kill some SOHO routers, since I have a friend who honestly belevies a linksys home router is better than a big clunker 2U rackmount that im getting off ebay.

If we are comparing a SOHO router to a Cisco rackmount, both made recently then the rackmount wins. If we compare a 2006 model SOHO router to a rackmount made in 1984 (Z80 processor and 64KB RAM), chances are the SOHO is better.

 

[bealzz]

while most of you are right by saying that its the software that differentiates the two, the biggest difference between a soho router and an actual one from say cisco or juniper would be the chips that they use. the ones in the soho routers are mostly do it all types of cpus while the ones in the cisco routers are very specific to what they do. the cpus used in cisco products can process packets more efficiently which results in lower overhead and better performance.