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RE: CIsco 7206VXR w/NPE-G1 Question

  • From: David Luyer
  • Date: Fri Jan 30 03:57:57 2004

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.