[c-nsp] Monitoring CPU usage on a Sup720-3BXL (BGP)

[Drew Weaver]

Actually no, bgp scanner has nothing to do with platform architecture of 
packet forwarding of any kind (hardware or otherwise). It is an entirely 
software mechanism which periodically walks the entire bgp table and 
does things like verify next-hop reachability. Distributing the 
operations that it performs so that they happen when a prefix or 
next-hop changes is a much better way to handle things (improves 
convergence and reduces the periodic cpu spikes), but you'll probably 
never see it go away completely. :)

--

I didn't assume the actual process BGP scanner would go away, I was simply wondering why as everything (Moore's law) gets much, much faster, this process still has such a impact on the even highest end RPs. I would assume that the "utilization" impact on the RP would go down as the $$$ of the hardware goes up, but I suppose if it all runs in software and isn't using the features of the more expensive RPs then it will just "be slow forever" ;-) I guess you can liken it to a PC without discrete graphics, you can have the best CPU in the world but if you are rendering polys in software, it's still going to chug.

-Drew