Google Chocolate Factory now building routers? As part of an ongoing effort to cover the Earth with its very own built-from-scratch internet, Google is now redesigning the router. Or so it seems. Citing "multiple sources, including one inside Cisco," the SDTimes blog says that the ad broker is "fed up" with Juniper, its current router provider, and "has taken it upon …
Given Google runs customized or personalized (if you will) variants of almost everything else this shouldn't come as any great surprise. To be honest I was surprised when I read the article and discovered they were not already using a custom tweaked if not built router. <Insert obligatory comment about Cade needing to find any reason at all to write a piece about Google here>.
Paris cos the only thing she hates about Google is they get more press time than she does.
Is there some way we can stick to the topic at hand without tossing in a few kindergarten insults? I know, it's difficult where Reg and Google are concerned, but for the love of god, at least -pretend- to have some journalistic integrity.
New or better systems come from unexpected places sometimes. Dated perhaps but... UNIX, anyone?
If Google manages to build a better router and puts that or the design on the market then I hope the world beats a path to Google's door.
If Google does not manage to build a better router than I'll give Google kudos for trying.
As for an audit, if Google is in the black and it's shareholders are satisfied then Google can spend it's research dollars how it wants.
Heart because Google search engine, as much as Netscape Communications in it's day, made the 'net useful to the punters.
the rise of the googlebeast is a genuinely worrying trend, I have absolutely no confidence in their (perhaps ironic) motto and would personally prefer to see a global initiative to "keep advertisers out of the infrastructure" both local and global.
This isn't progress, this is infection. It needs a cure.
OK, so describing Google as an "advertising company that makes a little on the side from second-rate software" might be a bit simplistic and harsh, but it isn't totally off the mark. As far as revenue streams are concerned, Google is in the business of selling advertising and, presumably, still generates the majority of its income from that. The fact that it isn't traditional advertising (TV, press, billboards or whatever) but is attached to a useful tool (an Internet search engine) is neither here nor there - it's still an advertising company and its ultimate aim (as a company) is to make as much money as it can out of anyone who will hand it over. Anyone who doesn't recognise that at some level is at risk of having a bit of Google, touchy-feel, "do no evil" wool pulled over their eyes.
OK, Google also seem to be keen on doing some interesting things with software and I'll grant that it's a bit unfair to use the description "second-rate" for their efforts - technically some of it is very good - but I for one still wouldn't actually buy any of their software and (but for the search engine itself and the odd bit of Google-Earthing) don't even tend to use it. So from a purely bean-counting point of view, it is a bit second-rate at the moment - athough it's a punt that could pay off in the longer term. (And, notwithstanding their recent history of cocking it up to an almighty degree, I'm afraid that the bean counters - and their close associates the legal beagles - are still the folks who are running the show. "Do no evil" and other such silly corporate mission statements only tend to apply for as long as the unwritten proviso "...but still continue to make money" holds.)
Cynical? Moi? Not at all...
Nothing like spreading a bit of FUD in the press to strengthen your hand when renegotiating your contracts with a key infrastructure supplier, is there? Or, from a more sinister angle, perhaps they're hoping to depress the stock price so they can pick themselves up a bargain.
http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:JNPR
I doubt that Google would have much luck selling these routers on to any other customer. The whole point of most of their modifications so far has been to remove nice, but unnecessary bits, like the case.
My guess would be that Google will do the same with its routers - remove any features that it does not use, and optimise them for raw speed. The last bit might sound good to everyone, but removing random features is not going to make them easy to sell.
has anyone thought, that since they are effectively building their own internet, being able to supply own routers etc that can also phone home and that are much easier to be controlled etc.
I have the greatest respect for google and what they have achieved, but....
I am wondering if the oh so ¨Do no evil¨ sheep may be a wolf in the long run....
just a thought.
Back in the early days, Demon built it's own routers & NextHop's been doing GateD as a software router for years. Then there's Zebra, Quagga, BGPD and more.
Assuming Google doesn't need any of the fancy features implemented in silicon on big routers, then it's largely down to packet throughput, latency, I/O throughput, number of interfaces needed and the big one, cost. For simple Internet routing & packet pushing, good servers probably already outperform routers and any router wrangler knows that processes or features running in CPU on big iron can be a bad thing, because the router processors tend to be slow.
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