-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Rubens Kuhl Jr.
Sup2(6500 or 7600) is not demand-based, there is no flow-based forwarding on it; it can actually go that far, but you are right about past (and most of current) Cisco claims.
Please consult your favorite knowledgeable Cisco employee and try again. Understanding the 6500/7600 product matrix and its effects on forwarding tables is a pain - but required knowledge for successful implementation. There is a reason why CEF is configurable, and the DFC is an optional "card".
In order to have 30 Mpps inside 15Gbps traffic, packet size on the line would be 62.5 bytes and no silence between packets would be allowed. When preambles and inter-frame-gaps are included, bottom line traffic would be higher, and real packet size distribution would make it usable for up to lot more traffic.
Actually 30 Mpps comes from how the 6500/7600's data bus works - 256 bits wide @ 62.5 Mhz = 16 Gbps (real numbers - Cisco states 32 Gb/s due to their creative accounting). 64 Byte frame takes 4 clock cycles (64ns) to get through the box (at minimum). With that you get 15 Mpps. That is base functionality - add x-bars, DFCs, x-bar enabled cards, etc, etc, and YMMV. But regardless.. the larger the frame the smaller the number of pps.
As this thread was started by ACL issues, are the 50/90/150 Mpps boxes you mentioned capable of ACLs at these line rates ? What other beasts besides IP II, Sup2, Eng 3 and Eng4/edge can handle high-rate ACLs ?
There are many vendors in the world that do line rate ACLs those speeds. I believe one vendor showed off 172mpps with ACLs at a tradeshow recently. Think it was about 50% of the cost of a 6500 also. But I could be wrong. .chance