RE: fundamental disagreements (was Re: Firewall/VPN recommendation for (Ex-) Gauntlet reseller)

["Scott Cohan" <scott.cohan () ubsw com>]

> 8...snip...8<


> > My favourite is Check Point on Sun Ultra 5's or E220's, the latter if you
> > think you need more memory and more processors. The ultra 5 has a maximum
> > of 7 Nics and the E220 is 16 (I think) if you use QFE cards. Sun boxes
> > probably offer better performance than Nokia boxes.
>
> I don't understand the limit of 7 NICs on an Ultra 5.  I thought there were
> three or four PCI slots, which would in theory accomodate 12 or 16
> respectively using Quad Fast Ethernet cards.  The 220R does in fact have
> more room for expansion, as mentioned above.


It's not a slot issue - there are enough slots.  We had an Sun Ultra 2 
with lots of memory and 2 QFE cards working fine.  We added an additional 
QFE card and couldn't get the Sun to recognize it.  Tried another Ultra 2 - 
same result.  Tried another.... you get the picture.

Raised a call with Sun.  Turns out that while it's theoretically possible, 
the older Sun CPUs don't provide the horsepower necessary to run 3or 4 QFEs.  

(4 QFE's work fine in our E4K series servers, BTW, though I think Sun's
oficial stance is that they don't support it - even in the E4K's, at least 
the last time I asked).

Scott


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