Router categorization

Santino01

Hi everybody!

I am not sure if I am right here, but maybe anybody can help me. I have a general question about router categorization. It is very common to separate the router market internet service provider (ISP) vs. enterprise market. I also found the ISP market splittet into core vs. edge router, but not the enterprise market.

• What is exactly the enterprise router market?
  • Is is the market for large corporations that run their own autonomous system?
  • Does the enterprise market also split into core and edge routers?
  • Are there not many router that work for both ISP and enterprise market?
• What is exactly an edge router?
  • Is this solely the border routers that interconnect two autonomous systems or does it also compromise access or gateway routers used for traffic distribution inside an autonomous system?

I would be very happy for some help!

All the best,
Stefan

networker050184

Enterprise market is usually medium-large sized businesses.

Some run their own ASN, some don't. It's certainly not a requirement.

Yes the Enterprise usually is split into core and edge devices. Different terminology when speaking edge in the ISP vs Enterprise though. In an Enterprise set up the 'edge' of the network is what touches the internet. Usually a firewall or router with a firewall behind it.

Yes there are routers that work for both, but usually an ISP router has need for much higher port density and throughput. They also have needs for different services like MPLS.

An edge router in ISP terminology is usually either a customer access router (PE is common terminology here as well) or a border router that connects to other ISPs.

Santino01

Thanks very much for your quick response!

So do border router solely connect two autonomous systems?

So when the enterprise is an own AS the edge router is the border router?
And if the enterprise is not an own AS it needs an ISP to connect to the internet and then the edge router is not a border router?
So then the edge router is a customer access router from the perspective of the ISP and a PE (=provider edge router?) from the perspective of the enterprise?

Is that correct?


The background of my question is that I am writing my Master Thesis about internet security. I am doing a graph-based resilience analysis on an university owned AS internet graph. I plan to model an attack scenario in which a worm is attacking routers (or special router types, e.g. Cisco routers) in order to disable as many autonomous systems as possible. Arguable the AS gets disconnected from the internet if all the border routers are disabled. To model it as realistic as possible I need numbers about the number of routers, shares of border routers and shares of router brands like Cisco or Juniper. I found market shares separated for enterprise vs. ISP router market. The ISP router market was further segmented by edge and core, but not the enterprise market. Probably the enterprise market was just too small to further segment it. The enterprise market was less then half of the ISP market.
In the graph the autonomous systems are either enterprises or ISPs. So I guess if there are numbers about the enterprise market, these include enterprises running their own AS as well as those who belong to an ISP.

Hope that wasn't too long, thanks again very much!

networker050184

It's all very subjective really because it's a naming convention. What one company calls a border another may call edge. Some companies put connections to other ASN's on their core. There are no set rules.

Yes, PE = Provider Edge. This is MPLS terminology which is a lot more standardized.

As far as the ISP edge/core it's really the role/use of the box. An edge router has higher port density and more support for edge services (TDM, MPLS edge services like VPLS etc.) while core routers usually have less port density, but higher capacity ports, while also not needing the edge features as no customer terminate there. For example an edge router might have 100 1G ports and a core router might have 10 10G ports.