Virtual Routers

The $20 billion router market is poised for disruption by lower cost, more flexible softwarebased routers. Routing software and x86 hardware have simultaneously matured to the point
where many routing applications can be performed in virtual appliances and do not require
specialized ASIC-driven hardware.

The router market has long been dominated by specialized hardware-based platforms
designed to maximize WAN performance. Earlier versions of software-based routing failed
due to their lack of maturity and poor performance. The current generation of software
router options benefits from the vastly improved processing and I/O capabilities of x86
servers.

Software-based routers aren't ready to replace all hardware routers -- especially not highperformance edge or core hardware. But some segments of the router market will be
impacted, and software-based routers are becoming an important consideration for network
designers.
Advances in software-based routers

The concept of software-based routers has been around for well over a decade. The latest
versions of software-based routers have been hardened via years of experimentation and
deployment. Open source communities, including Quagga and Brocade's Vyatta, have been
developing software routing.

In addition, advances in server hardware performance mean that more routing functions are
now in scope. For example, an Intel x86 processor can now handle up to 10 GB of traffic with
a single core (with eight to 16 cores possible per server). Server hardware designers have
worked with the networking community to deliver faster I/O and more efficient memory
access.
SDN and NFV disaggregate the router

The technology migration towards SDN and network function virtualization (NFV) will
accelerate the trends towards software routing. Software-defined networking and NFV
disaggregate network functions, including routing, and allow them to run as virtual instances
wherever the routing function is required. This disaggregation will take place in the data
center (virtualized layer 3 functions), in the enterprise WAN and in the telecom service
provider network.
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Current software router solutions

A number of innovative suppliers have delivered software based routing solutions, including:

Brocade acquired software routing pioneer Vyatta in 2012. Brocade Vyatta has
steadily improved performance of its routing code and has announced a number of
significant customer wins. Brocade also has announced a partnership with Rackspace
that lets cloud service customers buy Vyatta routing features as part of their package.

Adara Networks has announced three reference customers that have deployed its
software-based routers to improve their WAN-to-data-center and data-center-to-datacenter performance.

Vello has introduced VellOS, a flexible, software-based platform that supports (among
other applications) software-based routing. Pacnet has deployed VellOS as a router to
connect a number of its data centers over the WAN in Asia.

Netsocket offers its Virtual Edge software, which runs on standard x86 servers as a
replacement for traditional CPE and branch routers. Features include security
functionality (e.g., firewall) and an embedded Wi-Fi controller.

Pertino offers cloud-based routing functions as a monthly service. Users are provided
the performance, reliability and security of premises-based VPN router solutions in a
cloud with no hardware required on-site.

Incumbent providers with limited software-based versions of routers include HP, Cisco and
Juniper. Another startup with potential to impact this market is Active Broadband, which
offers broadband services management with incorporated software-based routing and
control.
Traditional router solutions

The response of the incumbent router providers (e.g., Cisco) to the growing threat of
software is to increasingly bundle advanced features into their router offerings.

These features include WAN acceleration, deep packet inspection, or DPI, and security
features. For example, Cisco edge routers include both ASICs and x86 options to provide
broad application flexibility. The incumbents maintain that hardware-specific solutions will
continue to be required to meet the performance, latency, reliability and security
requirements of their customers.

Other notable traditional (hardware-based) routers suppliers include Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent,

Network and IT professionals should consider software-based routers for many specific
routing requirements. Specific parts of the network that can be in scope for software routing
include data center routing; branch routing; and specific edge routing functions, such as
broadband remote access, or BRAS, and Diameter, in the telecom network.

Router functions that are not currently in the scope of software-based routing include highperformance edge and core routers and routers with support for highly specialized (non-IP,
legacy) protocols.

The adoption of software-based routers will start slowly but will gather momentum with the
increased adoption of SDN and NFV. Future generations of Intel processors will continue to
improve performance and increase the market potential for software routing.

The science behind virtual routers and their emerging

By now, the notion of "virtual" anything is a familiar concept. The most common, the virtual
machine, appears to users as if it were a real computer -- with an actual hard drive and
memory. In reality, however, these elements don't exist on their own. Rather, the virtual
operating system environment --usually VMware vSphere, Citrix Xen Server or Microsoft
Hyper-V -- presents these elements to us.
Virtual routers are no different. A virtual router has all the components of a physical router
and it works the same way. But, like a virtual machine, a virtual router doesn't exist as a
standalone box with physical connections.
To understand a virtual router, it's important to understand the elements of a physical router.
In its simplest form, a router links two LANs together via a protocol that implements and
understands sub-networks and the routes between those subnets. That is, a routable
protocol. Moving up a step, routers also link subnets -- via a wide area network (WAN) -- to
subnets that are based in different geographic locations.
Thus, three components are needed: a LAN interface, a WAN interface and the routing code
that can decide which traffic needs to traverse the WAN and how to package it accordingly.
When WAN routing first became a viable way to connect geographically dispersed corporate
LANs in the 1990s, the routing world was in its "Wild West" phase. While we might think of

our current networks as complex, they are quite simple insofar as basic routing is concerned,
since both the Internet and routers run over IP.
Connecting locations aren't as simple as first-generation routers
For early routers, it was not so simple. Many of these routers were connected using private
WANs (rather than the Internet) and might run any number of routable protocols such
DECNet, Novell's IPX and even Banyan VINES. (Back then, Cisco's marketing team used to
claim the vendor's products routed over a dozen protocols.) Thus, the processing power and
memory required to handle this set of protocols could be significant -- especially with respect
to the generally available compute power of the time.
The WAN connection wasn't simple either. The wide area interface would typically be highlevel data control or frame relay. These required specialized hardware interfaces that would
only be available in purpose-built routers.
Fast forward to today. Our world is vastly simpler. Not only do we have but a single protocol
to route, but CPU power has increased while memory has blossomed -- even on standard,
commercial servers.
The WAN interface -- as implemented by cable and DSL providers -- has become just another
standard Ethernet connection. And with 10 Gigabit Ethernet cards readily available even for
off-the-shelf servers, carving out the bandwidth needed to handle Internet speeds that rarely
exceed 100 Mbps is no challenge.
Basic routing requirements well within the sphere of commodity PCs
What does this mean? Today's basic router requirements (for a simple, branch-office class
router) are well within the performance levels of a commodity PC with two Ethernet
connections. And, of course, that commodity PC doesn't have to be real -- it can be
virtualized.
Even before virtualization became popular, Vyatta, now part of Brocade, built business-class
routers that ran on standard Dell PCs. More recently, vendors such as Cisco, HP and others
have implemented code on their platforms that allow the generation of multiple, standalone

routers on a single physical server. This translates into a virtualization approach that is
especially attractive in multi-tenant environments as each tenant can have a dedicated,
albeit virtual, router.