Cisco 7600 (7609) as a core BGP router.

Fri Jul 17 23:07:26 UTC 2009

We don't run very much Cisco gear (none of their larger, hardware  
stuff) but I have a couple questions for the Cisco gurus out there...

According to this page:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps708/product_data_sheet09186a0080159856_ps4835_Products_Data_Sheet.html
The Cisco WS-SUP720-3BXL can hold "1,000,000 (IPv4); 500,000 (IPv6)"  
route entries.

1) Does that mean a) The card can hold 1m IPv4 routes --OR-- 500K IPv6  
routes or b) 1m IPv4 routes --AND-- 500K IPv6 routes?
2) I'm assuming MPLS cuts into the number somewhere but could anyone  
explain it briefly?
3) Do ACLs use some of these resources or do they get their own slice  
of memory?

That page also reports "up to 40 Gbps per slot of switching capacity;  
720 Gbps aggregate bandwidth".
Is the 40Gbps per slot an aggregate or full-duplex value?

Thanks for helping out a Cisco n00b!
--
Brad Fleming

On Jul 17, 2009, at 4:30 PM, Steven King wrote:

> We use the 7600 platform as a Customer Border device. It attaches
> directly to our core, and directly to our customers. This has been a
> solid platform. Before this we used to use the 7600 as a load balancer
> for a DNS cluster. Worked fairly well. We use the 6500 series for our
> main network infrastructure and to border/core/dist layers and they  
> are
> rock solid, as long as you stay away from the SXH images. These are a
> bit buggy and we have had routers crash due to that image. We have
> deployed a few new devices with the SXI and are very happy with them
> currently.
>
> Jim Wininger wrote:
>> I have an opportuniy to put two 7609s into the core of my network.
>>
>> Currently we have 3 upstream providers, taking full BGP routes. (2  
>> in one
>> router and one in another). We have 17 BGP peers/customers (peering  
>> to each
>> router), and adding about one new BGP peer every 2-3 months. It is  
>> a modest
>> network by most standards. We are running OSPF and BGP between the  
>> existing
>> routers.
>>
>> Not rocket science, nothing special (no MPLS, no VRF etc), very  
>> simple
>> network.
>>
>> Does anyone have any recommendations on the 7600's as a core BGP  
>> router?
>> Good or bad? Have they been a stable platform in a core/BGP  
>> environment?
>>
>
> -- 
> Steve King
>
> Network Engineer - Liquid Web, Inc.
> Cisco Certified Network Associate
> CompTIA Linux+ Certified Professional
> CompTIA A+ Certified Professional
>
>
>