[c-nsp] High processor utilization on c12008 4port STM-1 line card

[Rodney Dunn]

If it's E0 cards everything is done in software so any feature
you add causes a hit in performance.

The ideal setup is a hardware forwarding card that can do
the features you need in hardware at line rate.

Rodney

On Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 03:58:35PM +0200, Primoz Jeroncic wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Unfortunately I have more then 260MBps to move. That's reason why we are
> upgrading to STM-4, but until upgrade is done, I have to stick with those
> STM-1. That's also reason, why I would like to get those "additional" 20Mbps
> per port :)
> I tried to remove rate limiting from config and everything looks much
> better. CPU went down to kinda normal and it looks everything is
> running better... at the moment :)
> 
> And thanks for other suggestions about moving second port to additional
> card. I actually have second card in GSR which is not doing anything
> so this might be pretty good thing to try.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for help with this.
> 
> Have nice rest of day,
> Primoz
> 
> 
> On Thu, 17 Aug 2006, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
> 
> > 1) Maybe you don't have more than 260 Mbps of traffic to move?  Are
> > you seeing packet loss?
> >
> > 2) what's the prognosis for getting more bandwidth?  you're running
> > kind of hot...
> > 3) Those cards are Engine 0 cards and pretty anemic.  You could turn
> > off the QoS stuff and see if things get better.
> > 4) It's packets/second that really thrashes these (and most
> > software-based) cards.  How many pps are you running?
> > 5) Those cards are fairly cheap on the secondary market (like, under
> > $500 apiece if I remember right).  You might want to consider
> > splitting your traffic onto two cards on both ends instead of two
> > ports on one card and see how much your CPU situation improves.
> >
> >                                         ---Rob
> >
> > Primoz Jeroncic <jp at softnet.si> writes:
> >
> > > Hi everyone
> > >
> > > We have few c12008 and between two of them we have 2x STM-1 links.
> > > Based on my MRTG, link payload doesn't go over 130Mbps, even though on
> > > SONET its suppose to go all the way to 150Mbps (I might be wrong about
> > > this, but I think I'm not). This means we get only about 260Mbps instead
> > > of 300Mbps (we run OSPF for load balancing on those two links). After
> > > a bit of research, I found out that line card (on 4 port SONET STM-1 card)
> > > processor utilization is somewhere around 80% or even higher, while route
> > > processor utilization is around 10%.
> > >
> > > Now I have question if there's any way to get this thing down, since
> > > I have feeling to high utilization on line card's processor is reason
> > > why I can't get payload higher. Would more packet memory help reducing
> > > processor utilization?
> > >
> > > Current hardware config is following:
> > > - c12008 with GRP-B route processor and 512MB memory
> > > - 4 port SONET OC-3c/STM-1 line card with 256MB processor memory, 64MB
> > > TX Packet Memory and 64MB RX Packet Memory.
> > > - few additional line cards (8x FE card and 1x GE card)
> > >
> > > PS: In case if it matters... I do have some rate limiting configured on
> > > POS interfaces.
> > >
> > > Thanks for any help.
> > >
> > > Have fun,
> > > Primoz Jeroncic
> > > Support - IP Connectivity & Routing
> > > -------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Softnet d.o.o.  tel:  +386 1 562 31 40   |
> > > Borovec 2       fax:  +386 1 562 18 55   |       1 + 1 = 3
> > > 1236 Trzin      primoz(at)softnet.si     | for larger values of 1
> > > Slovenija       http://flea.softnet.si/
> > > -------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
> 
> Have fun,
> Primoz Jeroncic
> Support - IP Connectivity & Routing
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Softnet d.o.o.  tel:  +386 1 562 31 40   |
> Borovec 2       fax:  +386 1 562 18 55   |       1 + 1 = 3
> 1236 Trzin      primoz(at)softnet.si     | for larger values of 1
> Slovenija       http://flea.softnet.si/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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