How much of the internet still relies on pre-2000 legacy code, infrastructure, or hardware?
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Asked by Question Bot10/Aug/20131 answer
1 Answer
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Faisal Khan
Answered 10/Aug/2013
From a hardware/firmware perspective, the question can be answered two fold:
Internet Service Providers / Telco / Data Centers
None of these would be sporting any sort of old equipment. A decade is a long time. 10 years ago, 100Mbps was fast. Today, 10G and higher switching fabrics are very commonly and routinely used. Bandwidth has shot up faster than anyone expected (thanks to Video, Spam, P2P, etc.).
All this has peaked the requirement for higher and faster switches, routers, etc. with faster processors, higher throughputs on the backplanes and faster PPS (packet per second) handling. Most would be out of business if they have 10+ years old equipment.
So from a service provider's point of view. I doubt you would find any legacy systems (hardware), circa 2000 floating around.
Businesses / Home Users / Enterprise / Government
When you exit the service providers cloud, the answer is mixed. You would definitely be seeing equipment from 2000 still being used by hobbyist, 3rd world and/or developing countries, small businesses, etc.
Enterprise businesses would most definitely NOT be using such equipment, because most of it would have reached EOL (End-of-Life) and the manufacturer would no longer be supporting such equipment, which in turn means that Enterprise Businesses would also be reluctant to have any legacy devices in their infrastructure. Government is a mix, depending which part of the world and which department you are looking in.
To summarize: Service Providers & Enterprise Customers - very rarely would you come across one that would have a functioning device from Y:2000
Businesses and Individuals: You can most likely expect to have a small but noticeable percentage of these users still using equipment from Y:2000.
Internet Service Providers / Telco / Data Centers
None of these would be sporting any sort of old equipment. A decade is a long time. 10 years ago, 100Mbps was fast. Today, 10G and higher switching fabrics are very commonly and routinely used. Bandwidth has shot up faster than anyone expected (thanks to Video, Spam, P2P, etc.).
All this has peaked the requirement for higher and faster switches, routers, etc. with faster processors, higher throughputs on the backplanes and faster PPS (packet per second) handling. Most would be out of business if they have 10+ years old equipment.
So from a service provider's point of view. I doubt you would find any legacy systems (hardware), circa 2000 floating around.
Businesses / Home Users / Enterprise / Government
When you exit the service providers cloud, the answer is mixed. You would definitely be seeing equipment from 2000 still being used by hobbyist, 3rd world and/or developing countries, small businesses, etc.
Enterprise businesses would most definitely NOT be using such equipment, because most of it would have reached EOL (End-of-Life) and the manufacturer would no longer be supporting such equipment, which in turn means that Enterprise Businesses would also be reluctant to have any legacy devices in their infrastructure. Government is a mix, depending which part of the world and which department you are looking in.
To summarize: Service Providers & Enterprise Customers - very rarely would you come across one that would have a functioning device from Y:2000
Businesses and Individuals: You can most likely expect to have a small but noticeable percentage of these users still using equipment from Y:2000.