[nsp] Packets per second?

[jlewis@lewis.org]

On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Stephen J. Wilcox wrote:

> I'm just wondering what they benchmarked this on! For example I have a 7206/225
> with 18000pps averaging 40% CPU and spiking each minute (BGP scanner
> etc). According to the docs the NPE225 can do 225000pps... hmm, I'm doubting
> this!

225000*64/1024/1024 = 13Mbytes/s  I wouldn't be surprised if a 7206/NPE225 
could route 13MB/s between 2 FE interfaces, especially if it's just a few 
static routes, no routing protocols...though I wonder if that 225000pps, 
is that packets crossing the backplane, or the sum of all traffic (input + 
output) on all interfaces?  i.e. 225000pps might be 112500pps in one 
interface and 112500pps out the other.

In real world applications, I've seen routers fall over way before the 
specs say they should...like a 3640 that would get so bogged down, you 
couldn't even log into the console, routing just a bit more than 10mbit/s 
between an NM-1HSSI and an NM-1FE doing ISL.  It was doing OSPF, BGP, some 
CAR, etc., CEF enabled, of course.

> Am curious to know if anyone has played with these numbers at all to try and
> benchmark one router to another and if there was anything interesting found.. 

The numbers are all likely meaningless sales tools.  More interesting 
would be if anyone's published some "real world" numbers suggesting what 
the gear can really do under realistic conditions.


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