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Which router for 300 meg connection

ursshared
Level 4
Level 4

I am trying to choose a router for a 300 meg metro ethernet connection. Would a 3800 series router be sufficient or should I go up to a 7200 series router? I may need to run MPLS on this link in the future.

7 Replies 7

Jon Marshall
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Lane

Your going to need at least a 7200 for that amount of traffic - see attached link for details.

Jon

May I just add 2 lines to Jon's reply:

1. It should be 7200VXR

2. NPE Must be atleast NPE-G1 (though NPE-G2 is the current one)

Also provided if you are looking for a Leased Line/ Broadband Aggregation like an SP, then NSE-1 would be attractive as well (doesnt need a separate NPE)

Alternatively you may use 7201 which is 1RU and can handle more than 2Giga PPS.

Though not sure cost wise which one would be a better deal.

Regards

Wilson Samuel

PS: Please rate all the helpful posts.

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

The 3800 series, even the 3845, would be a bit light, I think, for 300 Mbps (duplex).

Either a 7301 or 720xVXR-NPE-G1 should do. Both are the same except for the number of interface slots supported.

Next performance step up would be the 7201 or 720xVXR-NPE-G2. These too are about the same except for the number of interface slots supported. (NB: These don't run, I believe, any mainline IOS.) BTW, these platforms are supposed to offer 2x performance of the G1 variants, but there have been some posts on these forums that they might not actually deliver 2x the G1 performance.

Next up in performance, if the hardware accelerates your kind of traffic, would be the 7304 with the NSE-150. This too, I believe, doesn't run mainline IOS. (edit - BTW, I also believe the 7304 supports a few features not available in the 7200VXR - dual powersupplies and dual processing engines?)

PS:

Since you mention Metro Ethernet, some of the Metro Ethernet L3 switches might be an option for you too. Much depends on your feature needs.

Hi Joseph,

Of course the 3800 can support interface speeds of 300Mbps, however the throughput over the Data plane would be bit limited as per the Portable Product Sheets of Router Performance.

Please feel free to correct me if I have misread that info.

Regards

Wilson Samuel

Wilson,

"Of course the 3800 can support interface speeds of 300Mbps, however the throughput over the Data plane would be bit limited as per the Portable Product Sheets of Router Performance. "

Agreed! Did you think I implied otherwise?

Perhaps my statement that I thought the 3845 "bit light" for 300 Mbps implies it might handle 300 Mbps?

If so, that's correct, it might.

The reference sheet Jon provides notes CEF performance of a 3845 as 500 Kpps for 64 bytes packets. Gig Ethernet for 64 byte frames requires 1,488 Kpps. 300 Mbps (duplex) would require about 893 Kpps. So it appears the 3845 couldn't guarantee this level of performance.

However, gig Ethernet for 1518 byte frames only requires 81 Kpps. 300 Mbps (duplex) would require about 49 Kpps. I haven't seen the PPS rate documented for a 3845 at this frame size, but it might provide it. (Most software routers throughput increases with frame size.)

However, since the 3845 can't guarantee gig rate for all packet sizes, and since we should reserve some performance for control plane functions, is the reason why I think the 3845 is a "bit light" for 300 Mbps, regardless of whether it might, in some situations, sustain gig.

Does any of this help?

Hello Joseph,

some notes about C720xVXR

they can support two power supplies

sh inventory | inc Power

NAME: "Power Supply 1", DESCR: "Cisco 7200 AC Power Supply"

NAME: "Power Supply 2", DESCR: "Cisco 7200 AC Power Supply"

they can support mainline IOS like 12.4 pr 12.4T

see

sh ver | inc proc

Cisco 7206VXR (NPE-G2) processor (revision A) with 917504K/65536K bytes of memory.

router>

router>sh ver | inc image

System image file is "disk2:c7200p-advsecurityk9-mz.124-20.T.bin"

they can have only one NPE as far as I know.

and yes G2 performance is not 2 * G1

Hope to help

Giuseppe

Thanks for the information on the power supplies. I wasn't sure whether that was unique to the 7304 (reason for question mark -[edit] which was meant for both power and engines.)

Is a "T" train IOS considered mainline? I know it will become the next mainline, but is it, itself, mainline? (NB: I knew the G2 can run 12.4T, but I didn't consider that [yet] mainline, but I could be mistaken on what's officially "mainline".)

[edit]

"and yes G2 performance is not 2 * G1 "

NB: Although the ref sheet's performance, and what the G1 vs. G2 stands for, implies 2x the performance.

However, some (many) engineers' experience seems otherwise, which is why I mentioned it. I guess your experience also is that it doesn't?

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