[66278] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: GSR, 7600, Juniper M?, oh my!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex Rubenstein)
Wed Jan 7 12:06:20 2004
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 12:04:53 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
From: Alex Rubenstein <alex@nac.net>
To: Drew Weaver <drew.weaver@thenap.com>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <75634F04BFCFD511BF69009027DC86497D25EA@mailman.thenap.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
> close to what a new 7500 would cost. Anyway, on to the reason for my post.
> I've heard conflicting reports, is a 7206 faster at packet switching than a
> 7507?
>
> Some people tell me it is a better router, some people tell me it
> isn't.
Does an apple taste better than an orange?
7206 is a fixed CPU config (hold: i know, NPE's are interchangeable,
however, once you have an NPE-300 or whatever in there, thats all the CPU
you are going to have in it). Another words, no matter how many PAs you
shove into it, it's still a NPE-whatever driving the whole thing.
On the 7500, you have RSPs and VIPs; the former performing routing
protocol work, vty's, RIB's, etc., the latter doing actually packet
forwarding.
For instance, one of our 7507's, an RSP4 with 3 VIP2-50's, routing some
ATM, DS3, ChDS3, FE, and doing some MPLS AToM:
core2.sne# sho proc c
CPU utilization for five seconds: 4%/2%; one minute: 12%; five minutes: 12%
Most of the CPU utilization is Mr. BGP Scanner, our friend and yours.
Notice the /2%, informing you that this thing is barely doing any packet
forwarding.
VIP-Slot0>sh proc c
CPU utilization for five seconds: 13%/12%; one minute: 14%; five minutes: 15%
VIP-Slot1>sh proc c
CPU utilization for five seconds: 1%/1%; one minute: 1%; five minutes: 1%
VIP-Slot4>sh proc c
CPU utilization for five seconds: 7%/4%; one minute: 5%; five minutes: 5%
Obviously, we run dCEF, which puts the VIP's in the position of forwarding
everything on their own, as evidenced by the CPU measurements.
However, to answer your question, even a modestly configured 7507 with
RSP4, and VIP2-50's will be substantially more capable than a 7206-NPE300.
Things may change on the NPE-400 or G1, but I have no direct experience
with that.
PS. Regards to stability; we have SUBSTANTIAL improvements in IOS
stability, especially in 12.3.5a mainline.
-- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben --
-- Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net --
