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RE: Cisco Router best for full BGP on a sub 5K bidget 7500 7200 orother vendor ?

  • From: Steve Gibbard
  • Date: Mon Apr 26 15:58:39 2004

Reading this thread, it looks to me like everybody's discussing the "one
true router" for doing BGP, without regard to any other requirements that
may exist in this situation.

Being able to take a full BGP table in a Cisco is simply a matter of
having enough memory.  We're using 1760s as the current generation of PCH
route collectors, and they're working quite nicely.  For anybody who only
wants to route a few Mb/s of traffic with a fairly simple network
topology, just about anything with enough interfaces and at least 192 MB
of RAM should work.  As the network topology gets more complex or the
traffic volumes increase, it becomes a matter of finding the router that
fits the topology and can handle the traffic volume, while BGP capability
becomes a minor concern.

First, figure out whether you want a router or a switch:  Are you doing
anything that requires a router to isolate different switch networks
(hooking 20 or 30 or more switches together can cause some intersting
issues...)?  Do you have the sorts of flows that make a switch that
routes advantageous?  Does the ability to assign ports to lots of
arbitrary VLAN interfaces without having to trunk the router to an
external switch appeal to you?

Then figure out how much traffic you want the router to be able to handle.
Average load probably isn't nearly as much of a concern as peak load.
It's also worth considering what sorts of traffic surges or DOS attacks
you want to be able to survive, since those may push your traffic volumes
well above your usual peaks.

At that point, there's still a bunch of research to do, in terms of what
meets your requirements and what's available within your budget, but it
makes it much easier to say whether a given platform that's available for
the right price will work.

-Steve

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004, Alexander Hagen wrote:

>
> I bought a Riverstone Rs-3000 for BGP with a single upstream provider.
> Great Deal.
>
> Now I am back to the Cisco Question.
>
> I have two options within my budget:
>
> 1) Catalyst 6006 w/ CATALYST 6000 SUPERVISOR ENGINE 1-A, 2GE, PLUS MSFC
> & PFC
> 2) CATALYST WS-X6248-RJ45, 48-PORT 10/100 FAST ETHERNET SWITCHING MODULE
> 3) DRAM UPGRADE to 256 on Supe Card.
>
> This system costs somewhere around 1300.00 more than a:
>  Cisco 7505 w RSP4 256 Plus (2) VIP 2-50/128 and 3 PA-FE-TX
>
> Obviously the Catalyst is a better unit. But will it be as "burned in"
> and robust as the venerable 7505 ?
>
> I need to order by Monday A.M. as the router we have now - a 4840G is an
> extremely weird beast.
>
> Thanks
>
> Alexander Hagen
> Etheric Networks Incorporated, A California Corporation
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert E. Seastrom [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 4:59 PM
> To: Tom (UnitedLayer)
> Cc: Alexander Hagen; [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Cisco Router best for full BGP on a sub 5K bidget 7500 7200
> or other vendor ?
>
>
> "Tom (UnitedLayer)" <[email protected]> writes:
>
> > On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Alexander Hagen wrote:
> > > The PA-2FE-TX is about 1600.00- better to get a second PA-FE-TX with
> > > second VIP2-50
> > >
> > > Now why is the CX-FEIP-2TX so much cheaper than the PA-2FE-TX ?????
> >
> > I believe because the CX-FEIP-2TX is a full length card.
> > The PA-2FE-TX also isn't able to handle a full 100Mbps per port, so
> don't
> > be suprised if it doesn't work well :)
> >
> > VIP2/50 is a much better combo.
>
> The reason that the CX-FEIP-2TX is so inexpensive is that it is
> interesting mainly as a curiousity of transitional technology.
>
> A CX-FEIP-2TX is VIP1, not a VIP2 (even a 2-15 or 2-20), and is
> incapable of being upgraded to do distributed anything, (cef, flow,
> whatever).  It barely does full-duplex at line rate on one port, let
> alone two.
>
> Its sole use, if you happen to like to keep old hardware around, is
> that it will work in a 7000/7010 with RP/[S]SP, (ie, not an RSP).  You
> can use them in a 7500 (or a 7000 with an RSP7k), but why would you
> want to?
>
>                                         ---Rob
>