RE: [SQU] Cobalt CacheRaq vs Traditional

I looked pretty extensively at Cobalt boxes this past fall and can give you
some additional feedback on general aspects of these boxes, but not not much
specifically on CacheRaq:

1. It may be Linux but its a non-standard package format for everything so
expect difficulties moving software onto it. I.e. its a Convert RPM ->
Proprietary Whatever, grab your but and hope it works.

2. Their package library consequently is rarely up to date -- i.e. SendMail
is a few versions behind, etc.

3. Before wide spread knowledge of Webmin, their best asset was a prebuilt
UI for simple configuration.

4. They are now running AMD K6 processors but fairly slow (450 comes to
mind).

5. They are pricy although they appear cheap (i.e. the low end models have
tiny amounts of ram).

6. They are available thru www.pcconnection.com on a special order basis.

7. The MIPS processors are (I believe) dead with the acquisition of Cobalt
by Sun.

8. 3rd party support is waning. For example, my isp, rackspace.com,
refuses to provide ANY backup at all for cobalt. Pretty strong incentive
for RedHat, huh?

9. They look pretty.

I strongly suspect that you would do a lot better with an Industry standard
Linux box such as SwellTech as opposed to the Cobalt stuff.

J. Scott Johnson
The Fuzzygroup, LLC
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-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Cooper [mailto:joe@swelltech.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 1:28 PM
To: Hubbard, Dan
Cc: 'squid-users@ircache.net'
Subject: Re: [SQU] Cobalt CacheRaq vs Traditional

Yep. CacheRaq is a MIPs box (also Intel versions, I think), running
Squid, and a web panel.

Performance of the Cobalt boxes has been quite poor in the past (see the
IRCache DataComm cacheoff results). There are better buys IMHO, for
performance and support, in Squid based appliances (ahem--Swell--cough
cough). And there is nothing stopping you from installing Webmin on a
standard Squid box to have a nice full featured Web administration panel
with online help. It's easy to match or beat their performance on your
own, because it seems they do little performance tweaking.

Merely the opinions of a competing Squid-based appliance vendor...
Others may feel differently.

Hubbard, Dan wrote:

> Any advice / experience with the Cobalt (now Sun) CacheRaq box vs
> running a traditional Squid Proxy on Intel w/Linux.
>
> From what I understand the CacheRaq is simply a MIPS box running Linux
> and Squid with a web managment front end.
>
> Thanks

                                   --
                      Joe Cooper <joe@swelltech.com>
                  Affordable Web Caching Proxy Appliances
                         http://www.swelltech.com

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