[LARTC] parallel routers, fast (hardware) traffic split/merge ?

[don-lartc@isis.cs3-inc.com (Don Cohen)]

This is not a linux question, but is relevant to the question of how
one might build a fast router out of a large number of processors 
running linux.

I imagine a fast link coming to a very simple hardware device
that just distributes the bandwidth equally among a large number 
of slower links where they can be routed at lower speeds.
Then we probably need the inverse device that merges a large number
of slow links into one fast one.  This seems slightly more complex
in that it requires a little more memory and scheduling.

1. where does one find such split/merge devices?
I suppose they must exist.  Cost?  References?

2. is this even close to economical ?
Note that it does have one big advantage over commercial routers:
the user can program it.

Which raises
3. are there other fast routers that users can program?

and
4. are devices similar to what I propose already available ?
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