Hi everyone,
I'm looking for a new router to connect our data center to our tier 1 ISP
via a 50mbps fibre link. Does anyone have any advice about what level of
Cisco router would be required to saturate this link?
We're looking at the 2811 but I can't get any real world data about whether
it can route packets at 50mbps - this seems doubtful although unclear from
the information on the Cisco data sheets.
(I'm aware that a cheap PC running Linux could provide similar throughput to
a $20000 Cisco router but for a variety of reasons I'm reluctant to follow
this path).
Thanks,
Alex
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Alex Campbell wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'm looking for a new router to connect our data center to our tier
1 ISP via a 50mbps fibre link. Does anyone have any advice about
what level of Cisco router would be required to saturate this link?
We're looking at the 2811 but I can't get any real world data about
whether it can route packets at 50mbps - this seems doubtful
although unclear from the information on the Cisco data sheets.
(I'm aware that a cheap PC running Linux could provide similar
throughput to a $20000 Cisco router but for a variety of reasons
I'm reluctant to follow this path).
Thanks,
Alex
Do you need BGP? That's going to make a big difference in what you
want to use. An idea on the number/type of interfaces you need would
be helpful as well.
Mark Radabaugh
Do you need BGP? That's going to make a big difference in what you
> want to use. An idea on the number/type of interfaces you need would
> be helpful as well.
A 2811 will do BGP just fine... 760mb of RAM and plenty of CPU. In terms
of interfaces, it can nominally take four GigE and eighteen 100Base-T
interfaces, though I believe it's only rated for 4.8gbps total throughput.
How real that number actually is I don't guess we'll know until someone
tries it in the lab. I haven't had time yet.
-Bill
That's nowhere near real figures, even for optimal topologies and
> big packets.
That was exactly why I suggested that someone do some lab work on them.
-Bill
Cisco's web site has a Miercom report
http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps5854/c1244/cdccont_0900aecd8017382b.pdf
that tested a bidirectional UDP flow between two 10/100 ports, with
big IP packets,
firewall and NAT running and logging turned on, and they got 130 Mbps.
Your mileage may vary, depending on what a "50 Mbps fibre link" is and
what hardware and protocols you're using to support it (ATM? 51 Mbps
SONET channel on OC3? Some kind of fiber Ethernet device?), and if
you're using only 10/100 Mbps Ethernet cards, you'll want to enable
full duplex if you can. Presumably a real application is much faster,
if you don't need all the firewalling and NAT services.