[c-nsp] Cisco 720x w/NPE-400

[Vinny Abello]

At 03:15 PM 8/29/2006, Brant I. Stevens wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I have a client that is currently running the above hardware with a DS3,
>(limited ACLs, no QoS, iMix-type traffic, 2 full views;), and is looking to
>move to an OC3.
>
>My question is how much throughput, based on the above description, will
>this NPE be able to handle?  Is it realistic to expect the router to handle
>an OC3, or would an NPE-G1/2 be more appropriate?

I think the answer is it depends...

What is the pps count like? I've seen NPE-400's struggle under far 
less than a DS3 worth of DDOS UDP traffic. It's the pps count that's 
most important more so than the throughput. Although that's not 
normal traffic, it's something to consider if the pipe will be as big 
as an OC-3. On the opposite end of the scale, we push over 60Mbps of 
traffic through an NPE-400 with it averaging around 20% CPU load. 
Again, these are larger packets though so the CPU load isn't as high. 
This router also has a dozen or so BGP sessions and a full routing table.


Vinny Abello
Network Engineer
Server Management
vinny at tellurian.com
(973)300-9211 x 125
(973)940-6125 (Direct)
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