3640 vs. 2811

[mcallahan313]

I'm currently running a 3640 at our corporate gateway, which generally works fine for our needs. Under the current configuration, the router uses about 40+% cpu peak.

Lately I've been playing with nbar, and of course this really hammers the cpu when the traffic load is high. I've read of folks recommending a 2811 as a replacement in this situation. Is the 2811 really strong enough? I would have expected the 3800 to be the recommended upgrade. I do have a 2811 on hand, but I don't want to replace the 3640 only to be in the same situation with the 2811. How do these two really compare in performance?

Thanks.

[Adam Frederick · Accepted solution]

My personal experience has shown that when certain features are enabled (firewall, IPS, NBAR) on the 2811 it does bog it down as well.

To allow for growth, I would go with the 2821. The 2821 is a big jump from the 2811 in my opinion. I have a few 2821s running NBAR, NetFlow, QoS, Firewall & IPS and average CPU usage is 5%.

[mcallahan313]

NBAR/NetFlow/QoS is the direction I'm going so this info is great. Thanks.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

I've attached a router performance sheet often seen within these forums. Take careful note of the PPS rates.