vpn-lite Cisco CPE Support

krishna.vv · ‎03-12-2009

Hey folks,

For a requirement we need to configure multiple vrf's on a customer premise equipment basically to extend the VRF from the MPLS cloud till the CPE. I would like to know on the scalability of such a solution. How many vrf's can i create on a CPE and how will it effect the CPU & Memory of a router. I am talking of vrf-lite. Need to know on the router capability for Cisco 3825, 3845 & 7206 routers.

Thanks.

Kris

Edison Ortiz · ‎03-12-2009

Kris,

Please refer to this white paper:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps6537/ps6557/prod_white_paper0900aecd8051fbdc.html

You are looking at a max of 25 VRFs on the ISR routers while 1k VRFs on the 7206VXR.

HTH,

__

Edison.

krishna.vv · ‎03-12-2009

Hi Edison,

Many Thanks. while the URL did mention on the number of routes & number of vrf's that can be created for the ISR's & 7206, i am concerned on the effect of these VRF's creation on the memory & CPU. What would be the effect on CPU & memory when i create VRF's on the CE.

Thanks.

Kris

Edison Ortiz · ‎03-12-2009

No effect on the creation of a VRF per say other than the limits already stated. Now, the question would be what routing protocols will be running on each VRFs and the answer will be 'it depends'.

Best to create a 'proof of concept' with your proposed routing configuration and see the routers' limits.

BTW, the document includes information such as:

Recommended positioning limits for throughput and the number of VRFs scale from 2 Mbps and 2 VRFs on the Cisco 870 Series, and up to 45 Mbps and 25 VRFs on the Cisco 3845 Integrated Services Router.

Thus, it gives you a guideline on the throughput expected based on the number of VRFs. In short, if you keep within the posted limits and you don't run large routing tables within each VRF, you should be ok.

HTH,

__

Edison.

nishantmj · ‎03-12-2009

IF you go with ospf as CE-PE routing protocol then we are limited to 32 VRF's of which we can use 28,but if CE_PE is BGP then we can create n number of VRF's as far it does'nt cause the router to hang.

krishna.vv · ‎03-13-2009

Hey...the 32 Vrf's which you are mentioning is for which type of router model?

other than routing tables are there any thing else which use memory and will get effected due to VRF lite?

royalblues · ‎03-13-2009

Krishna,

MPLS environment requires us to use a seperate ospf routing processes for each virtual routing forwarding instance...

There is a limit to the number of ospf processes you can run on a router and that is 32.

This was however addressed in 12.0(27)S with unlimited support for software vrfs

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_3t/12_3t4/feature/guide/gtospfvf.html

Narayan