RE: CIsco 7206VXR w/NPE-G1 Question
Richard J. Sears wrote: I am looking at upgrading my current 7507 backbone routers. Each of my routers has dual RSP4s
Keep in mind that dual RSP does _not_ mean load sharing; it's for redundancy, if you can get RPR+ to work the way you want that is.
and I was thinking of upgrading them to RSP8s when I started reading about the new 7206VXRs with the NPE-G1 engine. I was wondering if anyone has had experience with this router/engine combination, how well they perform in comparison to the RSP8s and actual total traffic capabilities when utilizing all three gig ports with a mixture of OC3, Gig and DS3 connections as well.
In my experience, no 7507 is capable of this, nor a 7206VXR. As pointed out not too long ago, the RSP8 although intrinsically slower than a NPE-G1 will take more load because a lot of processing can be done by the VIPs in the 7507. The deal is that in a 7200 the NPE does the work of the RSP _plus_ the work of three VIPs; even if it's faster, it might not be that fast. That being said, I don't consider reasonable to get gig+ traffic trough a 7507; in my experience a 7500 will push 500mbps of traffic but will have trouble swallowing a full gig. My limited experience with the 7206 says that it might eventually be able to push _one_ gig from one PA to another, but not aggregate: say you have 4 or 5 OC3s aggregating into a GigE with some ACLs (which would run distributed on a 7500) I don't think that even the NPE-G1 is up to the task. IMHO, if you stay well below a gig, these el-cheapo eBay RSP8 deals are a valid solution but if you go over, GSR or Juniper is your answer. The 7200 has never been a core nor backbone router. Michel.
Michel Py wrote:
My limited experience with the 7206 says that it might eventually be able to push _one_ gig from one PA to another, but not aggregate: say you have 4 or 5 OC3s aggregating into a GigE with some ACLs (which would run distributed on a 7500) I don't think that even the NPE-G1 is up to the task.
Some notes (I sent some of these directly but since you're following up on-list, I will as well): * The 7206VXR prior to the NPE-G1 could only do around 560Mbps per bus typically, due to PCI limitations. * The NPE-G1 can do much more as the on-board 3xGE do not use the PCI bus (note, previous "on-board" GE ports in other 7200/7400 routers *did* still use a PCI bus). * As such, you have 3 ports which can run at gig rates, plus the ability to add two more gig ports (one per bus) around the 560Mbps rate. Or you can add OC3 cards on the other busses. But read Cisco's website re bandwidth points on PCI busses to confirm your intended configuration is viable if you intend to use many high-speed PAs. * Compiled ACLs on 12.2S perform very well on NPE-G1s. * Current IOS only uses one of the two CPUs present on the NPE-G1. An IOS which uses both CPUs is expected this year. However even with one CPU, the performance is significantly more than double a NPE400. * However you should do your own testing - it's a long time since I've done any performance tests and our production environment (being an Australian ISP) doesn't come close to 1Gbps on any interface but does use a lot of features (netflow, policing, NBAR, shaping, etc) with no performance hit. In the Australian environment, the 7206VXR NPE-G1 is a clear choice for many ISPs, due to the high demands on CPU-intensive features in the Australian environment and the massive performance improvements over the previous 7206VXR routers in the NPE-G1. David.
* The 7206VXR prior to the NPE-G1 could only do around 560Mbps per bus typically, due to PCI limitations.
Which usually was not a problem with i-mix traffic or ddos-traffic, because pps limitation would hit sooner.
* Compiled ACLs on 12.2S perform very well on NPE-G1s.
I saw no mention of PXF on NPE-G1; it seemed the path 7200 would take after NSE-1. What happened ?
interface but does use a lot of features (netflow, policing, NBAR, shaping, etc) with no performance hit.
Features was indeed to focus of PXF, wasn't it ? Rubens
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 03:29:41PM -0200, Rubens Kuhl Jr. wrote:
* The 7206VXR prior to the NPE-G1 could only do around 560Mbps per bus typically, due to PCI limitations.
Which usually was not a problem with i-mix traffic or ddos-traffic, because pps limitation would hit sooner.
* Compiled ACLs on 12.2S perform very well on NPE-G1s.
I saw no mention of PXF on NPE-G1; it seemed the path 7200 would take after NSE-1. What happened ?
PXF is found in the 7400 (old) and 7300 (newer) series. The 7400 was extremely unstable until very recently (with 12.2(14)S5 it is quite stable, as long as you have the hardware with the fixed L3 cache or have the L3 cache disabled), which is perhaps why PXF was not pushed so heavily after that experience. I have not used a 7300. If you want to look at what features they are pushing into PXF on them, look at the 12.2(20)S release notes. After the pain of being an early adopter of the 7400 I'm staying well away from the 7300 until I see others using them without stability issues. 7400 is closely related to the NPE400 (actually NSE-1), 7300 is closely related to the NPE-G1. David.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 03:29:41PM -0200, Rubens Kuhl Jr. wrote:
* The 7206VXR prior to the NPE-G1 could only do around 560Mbps per bus typically, due to PCI limitations.
Which usually was not a problem with i-mix traffic or ddos-traffic, because pps limitation would hit sooner.
* Compiled ACLs on 12.2S perform very well on NPE-G1s.
I saw no mention of PXF on NPE-G1; it seemed the path 7200 would take after NSE-1. What happened ?
PXF is found in the 7400 (old) and 7300 (newer) series.
Not true. 7401 has a PXF. It's essentially an NSE-1 with GE/IO in a pizza box. 7301 is based on the NPE-G1 and doesn't have a PXF anywhere in sight.
The 7400 was extremely unstable until very recently (with 12.2(14)S5 it is quite stable, as long as you have the hardware with the fixed L3 cache or have the L3 cache disabled), which is perhaps why PXF was not pushed so heavily after that experience.
I have not used a 7300. If you want to look at what features they are pushing into PXF on them, look at the 12.2(20)S release notes. After the pain of being an early adopter of the 7400 I'm staying well away from the 7300 until I see others using them without stability issues.
7400 is closely related to the NPE400 (actually NSE-1), 7300 is closely related to the NPE-G1.
David.
Luke Starrett wrote (quoting me):
PXF is found in the 7400 (old) and 7300 (newer) series.
Not true. 7401 has a PXF. It's essentially an NSE-1 with GE/IO in a pizza box. 7301 is based on the NPE-G1 and doesn't have a PXF anywhere in sight.
OK, more precisely (I did refer to the release notes of 12.2(20)S in my previous email) the 7304 is a PXF platform when using a NSE-100. The 7304 can be used with either a NPE-G100 (stated as 1M PPS, 3xGE) or NSE-100 (stated as 3.5M PPS by PXF, 450k PPS non-PXF, 2xGE). Of the PXF platforms: NSE-1 263MHz RM7000 "100MHz PXF" NSE-100 350MHz RM7000 "3.5M PPS PXF" 7401ASR 375MHz RM7000 "PXF based on NSE-1" The NSE-100 is a faster version of the NSE-1, and probably faster than the 7401ASR. Not clear if all the PXF based performance is equal or not between the three platforms; the 7401ASRs describe their PXF as "tmc type TMC ASIC revision 2". David.
participants (4)
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David Luyer -
Luke Starrett -
Michel Py -
Rubens Kuhl Jr.