[nsp] Throughput of 100 Mbps

[Terry Baranski]

> what's the smallest (read: cheapest :-) router that can 
> process 100 Mbps of traffic?

A 3745 per a Cisco rep.  But I don't know if they just gave me the
"official answer" by looking at the pps rating and running the numbers
with 64-byte packets (225,000 * 64 = ~110Mbps), or if the statement
applies to full-sized packets as well (e.g., from testing that they've
done in-house).

The reason this matters is because I was able to get 40Mbps out of a
2621 with full-sized packets using TTCP.  The 2621's official pps rating
is 25,000, which with 64 byte packets is ~12Mbps.  So the bandwidth you
can get with full-sized packets is, not surprisingly, significantly
higher than with minimum-sized packets.  If this is the case for the
3x00 series as well, there's hope that something cheaper than a 3745 may
be able to pull off 100Mbps will large packets. (Note however that it's
actually 200Mbps of traffic that saturates a full-duplex FE interface,
if that's a concern in your case.)

Do any of the Cisco people that hang out here have any information on
this?  I've asked this elsewhere and haven't had any luck getting an
answer.
 
> Playing with a 3620, I could only get around 40 Mbps. What 
> next? Do I need 7200? What about the 2600 XM, which I know 
> very little about?...

Given what I got with a 2621 I would have thought a 3620 would be able
to do somewhat better, but perhaps not.  What kind of test did you run
to get your number?

-Terry