Routers RAM and BGP table bloat

Nils Ketelsen nils.ketelsen at kuehne-nagel.com
Fri Oct 21 12:14:42 UTC 2005


Ben Butler wrote:

> if anyone had a view on what would happen if I managed to source an
> SDRAM of 512MB / 1GB of the same specification as the 256MB Cisco
> compatible memory that you use in an 7200 NPE225.  Cisco say the maximum
> ram for that NPE is a pitiful 256MB, I am sure the memory manufacturers
> will have made larger SDRAMs, while recognising it would be fully
> unsupported what would happen if we tried to stick in a larger memory
> module in the NPE....

I am just guessing here, but if the manufacturer says 256MB is the
maximum, I would expect that the unit is not able to address more than
256MB memory, regardless of the amount you plug in to it.

> It must be costing us all a small operational fortune in router upgrades
> brought about by the growing BGP table size.  And yes I do know that if
> I was running Quagga on a PC I could have 4GB of inexpensive RAM very
> easily, but I want to avoid the x is better than y discussion.

Apart from the fact what is better than something else: I think it is
very brave to use unsupported hardware to operate a network. If
something fails, you are on your own then. No support from the vendor.
One of the things where being brave and being insane are only seperated
by a very thin line ;-)

Nils



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