Cisco ME6524 CEF - Hardware or Software

[jrtuckiii]

Does anyone know if the ME6524 switch uses hardware or software base CEF?  I know many of the 6500 switches should use hardware based CEF, but ME6524 seems to have differences with its TCAM/chipsets vs the standard 6500 platform switches.  Such as for WCCP, I see s/w redirects hitting the CPU instead of the TCAM and it is showing CEF under the software redirects (FYI - the TCAM was overwhelmed due to a masking problem and that is why we saw software redirects).  This leads me to think that some of CEF if not all of CEF is software based on this switch?  Is this correct?

Thank you for the help.

Global WCCP information:
    Router information:
        Router Identifier:                   xx.xx.xx.xx
        Protocol Version:                    2.0

    Service Identifier: 53
        Number of Service Group Clients:     0
        Number of Service Group Routers:     0
        Total Packets s/w Redirected:        39481190
          Process:                           20
          CEF:                               39481170
        Redirect access-list:                WOC-from-WAN-to-LAN
        Total Packets Denied Redirect:       2176954165
        Total Packets Unassigned:            10088
        Group access-list:                   -none-
        Total Messages Denied to Group:      0
        Total Authentication failures:       0
        Total Bypassed Packets Received:     0

[andtoth]

Hi,

According to the Cisco ME 6524 Data Sheet, it's doing most forwarding tasks in hardware.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps6568/ps6845/ps6846/product_data_sheet0900aecd8040657e.html

You might also be interested in the Q&A documentation which you can find on the following link:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps6568/ps6845/ps6846/prod_qas0900aecd80406589.html

Q. What PFC3C features does the Cisco ME 6524 support?

A. The ME 6524 supports in hardware all the features listed in Table 2.

Table 2. Supported Features

Regarding the WCCP, you should use L2 redirect method and Mask assignment method in order to have full hardware processing.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/ipapp/configuration/guide/ipapp_wccp.html#wp1090665

Best practice recommendations about WCCP on 6500 can be found here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps708/white_paper_c11-629052.html

Best regards,

Andras