Solved: how to know what backplane to use

marcusbrutus · ‎05-08-2009

Hi. I just wish to ask how would i know the backplane capacity that would be required for certain network setups? Is there a guide as to the backplane capacity necessary for a number of processes/connections?

Thanks in advance.

Jon Marshall · ‎05-08-2009

Mark

This does depend on what you mean by backplane because often backplane and switch fabric are used interchangeably whereas they are not necessarily the same thing.

Switch fabric tends to be the throughput in Gbps of the internal switch fabric.

Backplane is usually referring to the part that interconnects all the relevant parts eg. memory/CPU etc..

To answer your question Cisco produce data sheets for all their equipment and you would use these to determine which hardware you would need to meet your requirements. The data sheets can be found under "Products & Services" -> -> .

Jon

View solution in original post

Jon Marshall · ‎05-08-2009

Mark

This does depend on what you mean by backplane because often backplane and switch fabric are used interchangeably whereas they are not necessarily the same thing.

Switch fabric tends to be the throughput in Gbps of the internal switch fabric.

Backplane is usually referring to the part that interconnects all the relevant parts eg. memory/CPU etc..

To answer your question Cisco produce data sheets for all their equipment and you would use these to determine which hardware you would need to meet your requirements. The data sheets can be found under "Products & Services" -> -> .

Jon

Joseph W. Doherty · ‎05-08-2009

It's very difficult to estimate backplane capacity based on processes/connections. Normally, it would be based on transit bandwidth.

On switches, backplane needs to be 2x sum of port bandwidths to guarantee all ports won't needlessly block. However, in practice, seldom all ports are running at 100% of capacity.