RE: [nsp] GSR Engine 1/2/3/4? huh?

From: Chris Whyte (cwhyte@microsoft.com)
Date: Fri Feb 01 2002 - 05:44:55 EST


>
>
> Type Perf ASIC Specs
> Application
> Engine 0 250kpps OC12/BMA
> Both
> Engine 1 650kpps Salsa/BMA48
> Both
> Engine 2 4Mpps PSA/Perf48
> Core
> Engine 3 4Mpps PSA+TCAM, Picante (nextgen Salsa), other
> custom ASIC's Edge

No PSA on E3. Asics are Alpha (ucode forwarding engine), radar (rx
queuing) and conga (tx queuing). Important thing to note with this card
and one or two others coming out is that there's a forwarding engine on
both the tx and rx side.

Engine 4+ should be mentioned. Most people mistake this for engine 5,
though there is an engine 5 planned (I believe). My recollection is that
E5 should look a lot like a 10Gb-capable E3.

So, E4+ has two new asics - one of the rx side and one on the tx side.
These asics allow you to do ACLs, netflow, a bunch of mpls garbage ;-)
and other stuff too.

I think I got it right. I'm sure someone will correct me if I didn't...

Thanks,

Chris

> Engine 4 25Mpps Newest custom ASIC's
> Core
> Engine 5 25Mpps ??? EFT/Beta customers?
> Edge
>
> Perf tested on ingress for 300-byte packets on Engine 0 and
> 1, others tested at 40-byte packets
> Engine 0 is also capable of 420kpps at 180-byte packets
> BMA is the Buffer Managemnet ASIC (two per LC, rx and tx)
> PSA is the Packet Switch ASIC
>
> Rod is correct about Engine 4 cards and that they cannot be
> used in the 12008/12012's.
>
> http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios12
> 0/120newft/120limit/120s/120s10/hw_acl.htm
> Discusses some of the impact that PSA and Salsa acceleration
> have on access-lists.
> This document is also very good:
> http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/63/gsrfaq_11085.shtml
> And this:
> http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/rt/12000/12slc/index.shtml
>
> Compiled ACL's with a few hundred lines can push the
> performance of ingress
> Engine 0 down to 100kpps, Engine 1 to 200kpps, and Engine 2
> can handle 1Mpps.
> Don't even both configuring egress ACL's, it ruins the
> performance of E0/E1
> even if you only have one E0 or E1 LC in the GSR and it
> doesn't even have
> the egress ACL configuration.
>
> Not much is known about the Engine 3 & 4 ASIC's, there are a
> lot of them,
> and they seem to be capable of a lot more, but I'm sure it's
> at the cost of
> complexity.
>
> -dre
>
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 09:25:02PM +0100, Rod Oliver wrote:
> > There is more to it than that, Engines 0-3 are 2.5G cards
> and run in GSRs
> > with either 2.5G or 10G switch fabric. The Engine 4 cards
> require 10G switch
> > fabric which means upgraded 12016s or the newer 124xxs,
> they will not run on
> > 12008s or 12012s.
> >
> > According to our Cisco SE the only significant (and that it
> is) difference
> > between the Engine 2 and 3 is that the Engine 3 is capable
> of outbound
> > processing (marking, ACLs etc) in hardware, whereas the
> Engine 2 is most
> > definitely not, both have the same forwarding rate (I think
> 4mpps). The rest
> > of the differences are in the configuration available ...
> >
> > Rod Oliver
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Tony Tauber [mailto:ttauber@genuity.net]
> > > Sent: 31 January 2002 21:05
> > > To: Jared Mauch
> > > Cc: Gert Doering; cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net
> > > Subject: Re: [nsp] GSR Engine 1/2/3/4? huh?
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Jared Mauch wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:41:22PM +0100, Gert Doering wrote:
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > >
> > > > > is there a document that explains the difference
> between "engine
> > > > > 1", "engine 2", ..., "engine 4" line cards for the GSR?
> > > > >
> > > > > Is there a simple way to say "this one is better than
> that one",
> > > > > like "the higher the number, the better the card"?
> > > > >
> > > > > gert
> > >
> > > > the higher the number the better the card.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I think it's safer to say "the higher the number, the
> faster the card"
> > >
> > > Different interface types come out on different Engine types.
> > >
> > > For instance, Engine 4 is OC192 and QuadOC48 but doesn't
> > > really offer "features" which Engine 3 is supposed to, though
> > > for the lower speeds.
> > >
> > > Faster != Better
> > >
> > > You get the idea.
> > >
> > > Tony
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Aug 04 2002 - 04:13:03 EDT