Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

[Posted October 8, 2009 by cook]

cnet reports on Cisco's entry into the Linux market. "In what might have looked like a publicity stunt around a $100,000 prize for Linux developers, Cisco's Linux development contest was actually a major clue as to just how serious it is about becoming a leading server vendor with a global development community--and soon. Today, Cisco announced the winners of its "Think Inside the Box" contest. The three winning applications are very interesting, but the bigger story here is what Cisco's contest just demonstrated: Most of Cisco's 7 million installed Integrated Services Routers (ISRs) are now servers, for all intents and purposes. The contest proved that server-side Linux developers who know C/C++, Java, or Python can now write applications to Cisco routers with little or no knowledge of routers."

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 8, 2009 23:47 UTC (Thu) by qg6te2 (guest, #52587) [Link] (7 responses)

How I wish people would stop using the term "C/C++" and instead separate it into "C, C++". Just because C++ has most of C in it, it doesn't mean a C coder can write good C++ programs. In fact, they're two different beasts, with C++ slated to pick up yet more features.

C and C++

Posted Oct 9, 2009 1:15 UTC (Fri) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (2 responses)

Hear, hear! Writing "C/C++" outside the context of "easily called from" demonstrates ignorance.

C and C++

Posted Oct 9, 2009 6:46 UTC (Fri) by simlo (guest, #10866) [Link] (1 responses)

Actually, at the company I worked before people meant "C++", but just said "C".

C and C++

Posted Oct 9, 2009 8:38 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I know people who do the opposite. As in 'the Linux kernel is written in C++'. No, it isn't.

C / C++

Posted Oct 9, 2009 7:19 UTC (Fri) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link] (3 responses)

The trick to writing good C++ programs is not to use most of the features of the language.

There are those who say that the best C++ programs are written in C, with a tiny smattering of C++.

So I think it makes sense to lump them together.

C / C++

Posted Oct 9, 2009 7:46 UTC (Fri) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link] (2 responses)

Hear hear hear. But it takes an expert to know what to use and what to leave.

Expert without quotes

Posted Oct 9, 2009 22:05 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (1 responses)

And, if LWN comments are to be trusted (we know they are), every expert will recommend using somewhat overlapping but subtly different feature sets.

Expert without quotes

Posted Oct 9, 2009 22:50 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Stroustrup's _The Design and Evolution of C++_ actually touts that as a
*feature*. I'm not so sure. It sounds nice until you have to look at a
project written by someone else...

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 0:58 UTC (Fri) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link] (3 responses)

The analysis in CNet doesn't make a lot of sense to me. According to it the two things that Cisco lacks to really win developers are x86 and Windows.net compatibility. WTF?

Apparently this is not really Linux running in the router itself (naturally) - but inside the Cisco Application eXtension Platform (AXP), which "is a Linux server blade that plugs into Cisco routers and runs a Cisco hardened Linux running a 2.6 kernel." (according to http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10113633-16.html ).

So this is not bad, but since the AXP is additional and not every router has it I don't see how it is that different from an ordinary Linux box/blade/etc. Just this one is manufactured by Cisco.

May be someone cares to explain?

Buying a server on the down low

Posted Oct 9, 2009 3:07 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] (2 responses)

If it's from Cisco, it's part of the Network Operations budget, not part of the Application Servers budget. And Network Operations can say, "we're expanding the router to add (functionality)" instead of "we're buying a server to do (functionality)" so they don't set off the company Server Buying Process. Slick.

Buying a server on the down low

Posted Oct 9, 2009 12:51 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

It's funny because it's true.

Buying a server on the down low

Posted Oct 10, 2009 3:00 UTC (Sat) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

In both the US and UK, and probably elsewhere, when old sailing warships got past the point of economical maintenance, money for new ships was hard to get, but money to overhaul old ships was available, so they'd strip the old ship down to nothing, reuse one timber from the keel or just a small scrap, build an entirely new ship, and call it an overhaul.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 6:16 UTC (Fri) by eduperez (guest, #11232) [Link] (6 responses)

The contest proved that server-side Linux developers who know C/C++, Java, or Python can now write applications to Cisco routers with little or no knowledge of routers.

Back in the old times, routers where routers, and they where almost as reliable as a switch or a hub; now, we are going to have applications inside routers, written by people "with little or no knowledge of routers".

Am I the only one to find this scary?

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 7:06 UTC (Fri) by pbrutsch (guest, #4987) [Link] (1 responses)

For quite a while now Cisco has offered expansion modules for their routers that are single-board computers running Linux.

These modules include an IDS module (the NM-IDS) and a series a HTTP caching modules (such as the NM-CE-BP-40G-K9 and NM-CE-BP-80G-K9).

All Cisco has done is provide a way for third parties to run code on one of these NM modules specifically designated for this purpose.

So, routers are still routers and switches are still switches. Unless you have a layer 3 switch, that is ;)

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 12, 2009 15:29 UTC (Mon) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link]

"So, routers are still routers and switches are still switches. Unless you have a layer 3 switch, that is ;)"

Didn't routers stop being routers a long time ago when the first nat device was hacked together. That was the beginning of the end for simple layer 3 routing devices. Once they got to layer 4 you knew it was only time before they attacked layer 5.

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 8:06 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (3 responses)

X86 instead of Broadcom processors will make them consume less power.

Allowing people with "little or no knowledge or routers" to write code for them is in order to make them more secure.

The article makes perfect sense :-)

(Please read it before considering to reply to this)

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 8:40 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

What? There's a CPU out there that draws more power than an (Intel/AMD) x86?

Amazing.

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 11:24 UTC (Fri) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link]

That's why this is so *newsworthy*!!!

Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight (cnet)

Posted Oct 10, 2009 0:16 UTC (Sat) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Presumably that would be the Broadcom ia64.