[c-nsp] c7604 "starter kit"

[Adam Armstrong]

> For a small ISP who need to get a routing gear much more resistant do DDoS than
> 7200 NPE-G1/2 (with a bit over 400kpps on a POS OC3 on a G2, the router is at 100% CPU,
> probably better on ethernet but...), what is the entry level 7600?
>   

> I'm new to the convoluted world of hardware routing :-)
>
> chassis 7604?
>   
7603 or 7604, depending upon wether you want redundant SUP/RSP.
> 3bxl or 3cxl?
> sup720 or rsp720?
>   
Those two quetsions are the same, SUP720 is 3BXL and RSP720 is 3CXL. The 
RSP is the 'official' 7600 version. It has twice the router processor 
speed, and a slightly enanced PFC, so just get the RSP (it's the same 
price!).
> linecard: what are the SPA? distributed forwarding? we don't need it a priori.
> there is a 6 gbic port (2+4) with PXF, what is this beast? probably something
> to avoid.
>   
SPA are interface cards. On the 7600 platform you put SPAs into SIP, 
which is basically an ASIC based carrier card which sits on the switch 
fabric (they do more features than the lan cards). If you're not doing 
VPLS or very complex QoS, you don't need SIP/SPA, lan cards will be fine.

If you need to terminate a POS interface, you will need a SIP/SPA 
though... Don't use the old PA carriers, as they just effectively have 
7200-speed processors doing the forwarding, so are still susceptible to DoS.
> I've heard once upon a time a 8 port GigE linecard was available and not anymore.
> will the 8 port fixed GigE (not 10/100 but only 1000) of the cat6500 line work
> in a c7600?
>   
Almost always, yes. There are some cards which won't, such as the the 8 
port 10GE card.
> We don't need 20 ports and that's a bit expensive.
> All port must do layer3, of course.
> Full BGP table, many times (3 full peer plus 100 local peerings w few prefixes).
>   
A 7600 with RSP 7200 will do lots of full tables. All lan cards will do 
ports as L3. You might want to look at buying the lan cards 2nd user, 
they're an order of magnitude cheaper than new! (especially older cards 
like the WS-X6148G).

I hope that helps.

adam.