Are SW upgrades needed in MPLS core networks?

Fri Feb 6 19:40:06 UTC 2004

> > I don't get why Juniper and Cisco trie-lookup forwarding would differ in
> > comparing IPv4 and IPv6; Juniper does a 8+1+1+1+1+... search until a
leaf
> > node is found, while Cisco does 16+8+8 (or something near it but still
with
> > 3 phases); for both architetures, IPv6 longer addresses implies walking
more
> > deeply into the tree in order to find where to route.
>
> Uhh...... One trie lookup is fully supported in ASIC, the other is not.

That probably would not yield half the performance, but a really crappy
performance according to my standards (not so tight as Randy's).

> > Just to be sure, my point here is not where the effective IPv6
performance
> > suits one needs or not, but wether a router that can forward <amount>
Mpps
> > of IPv4/MPLS packets can also forward the same amount of IPv6 packets
per
> > second.
>
> Personally I'd say the routing protocol functionality and stability is as
> important if not more important. I don't see the point in implementing a
> v6 network consisting of seperate 7206vxrs (to contain the ios crashes)
> and tunnels, if you're going to bother with it at least do it native and
> do it right.

In a ground-up design, yes. Upgrading an existing network in low capex times
is not that easy to do.

Rubens