Cisco Developing Standalone Networking OS, Report Says (crn.com) 77
Cisco has built a new network operating system that will allow users to run its most sophisticated networking features on older and lower-cost Cisco routers and switches, according to a report. From a report: The move to potentially disrupt its networking hardware business was first reported by The Information, which said that Cisco, for now, is not looking to have its network operating system available for non-Cisco switches. Customers who want to run the new operating system, known as Lindt, will be able to move away from switches based on proprietary high-performance Cisco chips to Cisco hardware that works with lower-cost chips, according to the report.
Keep it (Score:2)
Re:Keep it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
CORRECTION: "No one ever got fired for buying Cisco."
Meh... Skinny vanilla latte haven't kicked in yet.
Re: (Score:3)
They can keep it. Our company just dumped all of our Cisco equipment because it was buggy and unreliable. I don't understand how these guys are still in business.
Granted, Cisco has had their share of problems. The most recent one being that certain equipment models over a span of a few years were prone to RAM failure. If you have those models in your environment and they are failing, then yes, it would appear to you that their equipment is buggy. However, I've had experience in large environments with a lot of different Cisco equipment and we rarely run into premature hardware failures, for the most part they just run.
Typically, other than the RAM problem mention
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Weird. I have 2800 series routers and 3750 series switches that have over 10 years uptime. Never powered off. Never restarted. Running since June 2006. They are solid.
Now I will admit that I'm behind on my IOS updates.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Depends on what you make them do, and the version of code used to do it. There are some parts of IOS they simply don't test. (I've had QA engineers say so.) The biggest issue I've had -- and they've never fully fixed it -- is DHCP on a NAT outside interface. "interface nat" doesn't work. And then there's always some little memory leak or corruption issue somewhere that will crash the thing at some point. (even if it takes years.)
Re: (Score:1)
- Cisco 7401's: cache design fault causes random reboots. ... bad caps (industry wide issue for a few years) ... bad RAM across the entire spectrum of products
- PIX 501: poor choice of power connector, and poorer choice of internal power components led to the first few thousand having to be "fixed"
-
-
And that's not counting the thousands of "one off" failures enterprises experience all the time. (that's why you buy Smartnet!) I've had the SRAM (packet memory) in a VIP "go bad".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you think the average person was better off with anything other than Windows in the 90s you're delusional.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Translation (Score:2, Interesting)
Translation:
The hardware business is going stale. Lets add the same feature in software, where we can nickel and dime people for the same features,and tightly control access.
Packet inspection license
Packet routing license
Packet switching license
UDP packet license
TCP packet license
NSA inspection fee....
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much. That's why Cisco bought Meraki, to attempt to dissect how to leverage the subscription model instead of just selling hardware to customers and providing support if it's needed.
Re: (Score:2)
The hardware business is going stale
Software cannot run out of thin air. This is not what "Cloud" means. It's simply different hardware, or other people's hardware. In the end, you still need computing power and specialized hardware to do serious business stuff. Virtualization needs an underlying physical layer.
Re: (Score:2)
Nickle and dime pricing, I'm sure. (Score:2)
That'll be $5,000 per year, please for your 5-port switch. That includes your per port license fee for using IP networking, license fee per port for gigabit Ethernet, license fee for linking one port to another switch, license fee for admin access, license fee for installing the unit during a full moon...
Re: (Score:2)
Don't lapse on your $5,000 per year or you get to pay it retroactively if you want to install a security update to fix their bugs.
I swear, somebody in Cisco is a double-agent for HP.
Re: (Score:2)
I swear IT customers are like girls who fall for the bad boys and ignore the decent guys. if a company wants a simple license fee to use its software people will pirate it or ignore it and use "open source". But if you get someone who abuses you by saying my way or the highway they will stick to him/it even closer. Witness Apple, Cisco,Accenture etc etc
Re: (Score:1)
You're conflating two types of customers: individuals (who just want to grab a tool and get on with their job) and corporations (who want every procurement to have a business case and approval from IT Security, Legal, Supply Chain, a Business Analyst, and 3-4 managers). The open source product wins because the developer/engineer/analysts/creative can just use it and ...er... ask for permission later (like maybe never, later). The big Oracle-like products win because they can afford account reps who will win
Re: (Score:2)
Why cant you setup your own DR instead of going to a Cloud Hosted Model? Cloud hosting is a continuos drain whereas with your own DR you can use that money to fund your own IT positions forever. Again efficiency for the sake of efficiency is dumb when you end up eliminating your own job.
Re: (Score:1)
Negative. This is simple nickel-and-dime price rouging. They sell you the same piece of hardware with a different model number on it, crippling it in software and licensing. For example, the ages old ASA 5510/20/40/50. They're all the same hardware. They get slightly faster, and better processors, and more DIMM slots, but it's the same software on the same motherboard. On the 10, the four gigabit nics are limited to 10/100; if you buy the expensive security plus license, then *two* of them can be set to gig
Re: (Score:2)
A Gucci purse cost 5 dollars to manufacture in a sweatshop in Bangladesh. its sold for 5000 USD. Why? Because people in the fashion industry know not to shit where they eat. Software developers are their own worse enemy. The cost of something is not what it costs you to produce, its what someone is willing to pay for it. Thats Economics 101
Re: (Score:1)
Security updates/fixes can be had for free. It can be a bit of work to get them honor it, but every security advisory has a clause at the bottom to contact TAC for non-contract customers. (In my experience, it's faster to search the internet for it, than deal with out-of-contract interactions with TAC.)
Re: (Score:2)
That includes your per port license fee for using IP networking
Joke's you you! I use IPX netwo
spyware upgrade (Score:2, Interesting)
"Cisco has built a new network operating system that will allow spy agencies to run their most recent spyware on older and lower-cost Cisco routers and switches"
ftfy
Re: (Score:1)
A bit of inside info... (Score:4, Informative)
It's written in assembly and is so compact that it fits on a floppy disk. It's called Lindt now but I think they should stuck with the original name, the Disk Operating System. ;)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's called Lindt
I imagine it's choc full of features.
Re: (Score:2)
Assembly? So they're running the networking OS off PCs? What about people who're not on Windows? Reading the headline, I thought they were releasing an OS that would run on their old equipment, but support current networking standards, such as IPv6
Hope they got this right... (Score:2)
Fully Backdoor Compatible (Score:2)
Will rent out to highest bidder!!
Market response (Score:5, Insightful)
This is only a surprise outside of large enterprises.
Open Flow (SDN) is threatening them at the high end, and there are multiple competitors at the low/mid market---including Dell, who bought Force10 and is pushing their network and storage products very seriously.
Dell now owns VMware, EMC, Compellent, and Force10. They only need power delivery and UPS to offer a complete datacenter.
Cisco cannot justify insane pricing in the face of so many capable competitors. Especially when their attempts to expand into cloud services failed so miserably. Their hardware offerings outside of network gear are almost laughable.
Cisco can probably survive another 10-20 years if they compete well with their gear. The gear has always been solid, and the problem has always been a combination of lock-in and price. Competing on price will keep them a while, especially with their track record, but they will need more than competitive network gear to survive long-term.
Re: (Score:2)
I worked at a large American telecom company over a decade ago, and they had a lot of Juniper gear even back then. It was mostly ERX 1440s sitting between the core and the customers.
I think it really does take a long time for most individual enterprises to move away from such an entrenched vendor, but it will happen faster if Cisco doesn't get their act together. I'm seeing reports that Dell/Force10 is capable of pushing the same data rates at half the wattage compared to Cisco (Juniper is very close to For
Re: (Score:1)
Cisco tried for years to modularize IOS. It was a mess and never left the lab. Instead, they turned into an application running on a linux platform. The ASA... linux running a single application that is the entire firewall. (linux is easier to run on random x86 systems than porting your homegrown, inhouse OS) For IOS, we ended up with NX-OS (switches), and IOS-XE (routers) -- and IOS-XR [QNX based] on the bigiron routers. [ https://networkingnerd.net/tag... [networkingnerd.net] ]
Is this meant to be SDN or just more proprietary? (Score:2)
Are vendors so stuck in the hardware device sales mode that we will never see generic switch form factors where you load the switching/routing software into the device like an x86 box?
I would kind of expect one of the chipset vendors to come out with what amounts to an x86 rackmount with bus-attached switching modules, kind of an expanded version of a multiport NIC but with programmable ASICs for speed.
From what I've seen of the Dell N-series (which mostly seems to be rebranded OEM Broadcom) boot sequence,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
There are, indeed, such "white box" switches out there. They aren't 100% open as Broadcom isn't about to release the SDK for their switch chips. (and having worked with the mess, you. don't. want. it.) And it's Broadcom's chips at the heart of almost every manufacturers switches. (even Cisco and HP)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
So they could nickel-and-dime you in the cloud as well.
Meraki is ok. But their hardware is way too expensive, and the never ending cloud management fees can't be ignored. For an enterprise that can't afford a huge IT staff, the stuff is perfect, if costly.
Re: (Score:2)
So, does that mean I can run BlackBerry on my Cisco hardware? ;)
My friends that hate BB and Cisco will shit over that. :)
Re: (Score:2)