[quantumfusion]

Do you think cisco is a monopoly ?

-Sell stuffs so expensively . Cheapest switch/router at least 10k and above
-Hardware in these networking devices oso not very advance. dont even use 64 bit architecture / processors with multicore etc.
-Networking education teaches people how to "rely" on cisco products .
and many more.. what do you think ?

[LiM]

You can choose to use alcatel instead.
Their product as good as cisco IMO, slightly cheaper.

[lennardseah]

they're not a monopoly. just selling their brand and support options

[quantumfusion]

but seriously dont u think their price is kinda over priced ? their routers hardware are not really that good and it is commanding at around 10k per unit . if i get an I7 processor with custom linux routing OS installed , and many nic installed, probably can perform better lol and wont cost 10k oso

[DragonFire]

You pay for options and support.

If my router breaks down and I have good Smartnet coverage, I will get a replacement the same day. Logging a pri 1 case means I get callback from tech support within 10 minutes, and that my problem will get fixed.

If I'm losing $200k in potential revenue per hour of downtime, I'd say Cisco gear ain't that expensive.

Dabbling in OS like netBSD is fine, and can even be fun. I'd keep those boxes at home tho where downtime is just an inconvenience, unless I have BSD network stack guru at my beck and call, and standby replacement hardware. btw... in terms of performance, a multifunction x86 chip will never be able to match a custom parallel processing hardware asics whose only purpose in existence is to push packets. The backplane capacity of current industrial routing and switching appliances can exceed 100Gbps. Way more than your PCIe bus can handle.

DF