Hi Nathan,
We do this frequently and with a 2501 or a 2514. It must be a Cisco router and sometimes will need more memory. There is NO additional charge for those
Yes, it will work on 25xx, but when you have a peer drop it will kill your 2501 big time. The CPU on the 25xx is used to forward packets and do the BGP4. If you want to try it with 25xx it will work, but I would go with a 4xxx router.
I would have to say my experience is different for cpe stub routers for customers that don't need full tables. There is no question that at least a 4xxx should be used for any sizable bgp mesh. However, I used 2500 routers for limited BGP peers at the periphery of my network with no problems whatsoever. I just fed my IGP routes to the 2500 via iBGP, peer w/ the transit AS and take just ^ASNUMBER$ from them. Worked well, no reliability problems, no cpu problems. Obviously this only works if the customer doesn't need full tables. If we were talking about meshing full tables, or multiple peers, then I'd very much suggest using a 4xxx or 7xxx. -alan -- alan@mindvision.com Not Employed Networking, Inc.