[c-nsp] new Cisco routers 1800/2800/3800

[Ryan O'Connell]

On 30/09/2004 16:30, Gert Doering wrote:

>If rumors are true, the NPE-G1 has a second CPU on the board that's just
>not yet used.  What I'd really like to see is a software upgrade enabling 
>that CPU, and bumping up the processing performance quite some...
>
>It might not be overly helpful for "raw packet forwarding", but things
>like L2TP termination might benefit from a second CPU sharing the
>work...
>  
>

It's not just a rumour, it's "official":
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/modules/ps4917/products_white_paper09186a0080113728.shtml
(Figure 3)

Notably this is a page on the uBR7200 and the same diagram doesn't 
appear on the 7200 page, so your suspicions about it being for things 
like L2TP termination are probably correct.

Cisco don't have any experience - that I know of - in SMP kernels, so at 
least with the current IOS I think a true load-sharing arrangement is 
unlikely. What they do have a vast amount of expertise in is distributed 
processing, which again ties in with offloading things like L2TP tunnels 
to a seperate processor...

-- 
         Ryan O'Connell - CCIE #8174
<ryan at complicity.co.uk> - http://www.complicity.co.uk

I'm not losing my mind, no I'm not changing my lines,
I'm just learning new things with the passage of time