I like how in the link Lyle provided they said that it is a 'marketing term'. In other words.... it is a new name for the same stuff so they can charge more!
:-)~MIKE~(-:


On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Matt Graham <danceswithcrows@usa.net> wrote:
From: Michael Havens
>>  http://tinyurl.com/qbdgqs8
> "Cumulus, which is building a Linux operating system for switches
> that use merchant silicon, ...."
>
> What is 'merchant silicon'?

Hardware (embedded or regular x86) that can be bought in large quantities
off-the-shelf.

A Grumpy Old Sysadmin wrote this in the Monastery on 2007-01-27:
----------
A commodity PC (P3 vintage) running quagga on Linux easily out-performs
the specialist routing hardware in a 7000 series for ethernet to
ethernet routing (full BGP table). I had to jury rig a temporary router
to cover for blown PSUs on said Cisco when a certain data centre
overheated, and was greatly enlightened.
----------

...everything old is new again, eh?

--
Matt G / Dances With Crows
The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see

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