NPE-G2 vs. Sup720-3BXL

Fri May 15 16:51:50 UTC 2009

Cisco 7304 may not adequate for service provider.
It's CPU/IO-controller is tied together, and doesn't provide much of
benefit.

Cisco 7200/7300 is enterprise solution pretty much, and doesn't support
distributed CEF.

If you are considering SUP720-3BXL, why not considering RSP720-3CXL ?

Alex

Aaron Millisor wrote:
> We ran into a similar quandary and have about the same amount of
> traffic as your network. When purchasing gear a year ago we decided
> against 7200's with an NPE-G2 as insufficient for the load. Have you
> looked at the 7304?
>
> The Cisco 7304 with an NSE-150 processing engine on it offloads a lot
> of the packet processing to dedicated hardware, and doesn't have TCAM
> limitations for routes. You can hold several full feeds and do the
> amount of traffic you're talking about without breaking a sweat.
>
> http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps352/prod_bulletin0900aecd8060aac5.html
>
>
> It is capable of supporting both legacy port adapters (from your
> Flexwan or 7200 routers) and SPA cards with the right add-in modules,
> which IIRC is only a few hundred dollars.
>
> I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about our implementation.
>
> --am
>
> David Storandt wrote:
>> We're stuck in an engineering pickle, so some experience from this
>> crew would be useful in tie-breaking...
>>
>> We operate a business-grade FTTx ISP with ~75 customers and 800Mbps of
>> Internet traffic, currently using 6509/Sup2s for core routing and port
>> aggregation. The MSFC2s are under stress from 3x full route feeds,
>> pared down to 85% to fit the TCAM tables. One system has a FlexWAN
>> with an OC3 card and it's crushing the CPU on the MSFC2. System tuning
>> (stable IOS and esp. disabling SPD) helped a lot but still doesn't
>> have the power to pull through. Hardware upgrades are needed...
>>
>> We need true full routes and more CPU horsepower for crunching BGP
>> (+12 smaller peers + ISIS). OC3 interfaces are going to be mandatory,
>> one each at two locations. Oh yeah, we're still a larger startup
>> without endless pockets. Power, rack space, and SmartNet are not
>> concerns at any location (on-site cold spares). We may need an
>> upstream OC12 in the future but that's a ways out and not a concern
>> here.
>>
>> Our engineering team has settled on three $20k/node options:
>> - Sup720-3BXLs with PS and fan upgrades
>> - Sup2s as switches + ISIS + statics and no BGP, push BGP edge routing
>> off to NPE-G2s across a 2-3Gbps port-channel
>> - Sup2s as switches + ISIS + statics and no BGP, push BGP edge routing
>> off to a 12008 with E3 engines across a 2-3Gbps port-channel.
>>
>> Ideas and constructive opinions welcome, especially software and
>> stability-related.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>> -Dave
>
>
>