Google Router Rumors 267
An anonymous reader writes "There's a new rumor that Google is developing its own router. The company won't comment on the story, but it's been in the hardware business for a while and expanded its presence with Android. If Larry Ellison can go halvsies with HP on a server, then Eric Schmidt should certainly be able to make Cisco nervous."
TFA says Juniper is doomed. Not so fast. (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Re:TFA says Juniper is doomed. Not so fast. (Score:5, Informative)
Of course Google would not waste time developing their own ASICs. Companies like Marvell, Broadcom, and Dune offer plenty to choose from, and companies such as FDRY and JNPR already use these to build their own offerings.
It only makes sense for Google to use the building blocks to make a device that meets their specific needs.
Re:If they do (Score:5, Informative)
The Apple Airport Express and Airport Extreme routers support IPv6, although there's a bug in the latest firmware for doing configured tunnels.
Re:If they do (Score:3, Informative)
It's interesting that Apple OSX has supported IPv6 for a while (probably a side-effect from using BSD) and Apple routers (Airport Extreme) supports IPv6 and (if I remember the specs right) tunneling IPv6 over IPv4 out of the box and enabled.
While that does not represent the vast majority of the computers/home routers in use, this does show that some companies are trying to start the trend.
Re:In My Opinion, Cisco Should Be Worried (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In My Opinion, Cisco Should Be Worried (Score:0, Informative)
Sorry to disappoint, but Google's network is built on Juniper routers and was designed by Juniper Engineers...
Re:Google was just trying to save money (Score:3, Informative)
This sort of thing doesn't get offered, it is thrown in or dragged out as a sweetener for a humungeous order. And it is usually covered by a confidentiality clause because they don't want to be forced to offer it to the next, merely large, customer. But if you are placing an order which represents a serious fraction of quarter's output, you can get a lot thrown in - espexially if it doesn't actually cost anything to provide.
Though this would be a problem rather than a benefit for Google. They would have to put up fairly strong Chinese Walls inside their labs to ensure that the team developing their own router hadn't seen the competing device so couldn't be accused of ripping it off.
Re:What's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
It's an awful summary. Google isn't dumb enough to go compete in the router market. They are likely creating optimized routers to service their own backend.
Don't you remember this was the same thing that happened when information on GFS leaked or the custom OS versions they use in their data center. People hyped it up as if google was going to take on MS in the OS arena.
Re:Google was just trying to save money (Score:3, Informative)
When you buy thousands of routers you get them customized to your exact needs and you get whatever support arrangement you desire including complete drawings and source code.
Do you think that companies like AT&T who have 10s of thousands of switches/routers get IOS source code from Cisco? Do you think that ATT would waste resources on having people "reviewing IOS source code"?
You get features/enhancements added because you buy so much, but you don't get schematics and source code...
Re:Not in "hardware business," won't sell routers (Score:1, Informative)
we bought 3 servers from google. they came in cool blue boxes and even had a tshirt inside... I don't think google has *zero* experience in hardware sales and support:
http://www.google.com/enterprise/products.html
Re:In My Opinion, Cisco Should Be Worried (Score:1, Informative)
After working at Best Buy for awhile while I was in school, I can tell you that this is very common.
We had customers bring 3 or 4 routers back in a week after their house killed all of them. Sold them a UPS to put them on, problem solved.
Also, after bad weather that caused power outages, routers came back at a higher rate than normal.
Re:Vyatta anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe nobody has made mention of Vyatta. It's an excellent appliance-like distro based on, I believe, Debian.
It's not mentioned because it's not even remotely relevant to the discussion.
All the bells and whistles you'd expect from a high-end device at a fraction (by which I mean ~1/3) of the cost relative to a Cisco purchase.
Including bells and whistles like custom ASICs and switching fabrics? Oh, wait, it doesn't have those. Nothing about Vyatta is "high-end." It is, however, a viable alternative at the very low-end.
Re:In My Opinion, Cisco Should Be Worried (Score:5, Informative)
Tomato is good, too. I found Tomato to be less buggy and more responsive and DD-WRT -- and believe me, I was fanatical about DD-WRT. I used it for years before trying Tomato.
Re:In My Opinion, Cisco Should Be Worried (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't Juniper's business plan to install FreeBSD on cheap embedded hardware and pretend that it's special-secret-proprietary-magic? I wouldn't be surprised if Google could undercut them, for in-house use at the very least.
Do you really think that FreeBSD has anything to do with routing packets and the other functionality on Juniper routers? In fact your comment suggests that you could put FreeBSD on the same hardware and acheive equivalent levels of features and performance, which really is incredibly uninformed.
Steve Yegge blogged about this in June 2007... (Score:2, Informative)