[c-nsp] ME3600X architecture

Waris Sagheer (waris) waris at cisco.com
Sat Mar 31 18:42:13 EDT 2012


Hi,

The architecture details are currently not available on CCO. 

ME3800X/ME3600X has Cisco Carrier Ethernet ASIC. It is a Cisco ASIC and
it has all the features (QOS, MPLS, EVC) hardwired. The forwarding is
TCAM based hence NO performance impact upon enabling multiple features
at the same time. Scale advertised is multidimensional meaning number of
IPv4 routes and IPv6 can coexist at the same time since every feature
has its own TCAM space reserved. Push/pop/swap of MPLS labels won't have
any performance impact and same is true for QoS policies.

There are two Cisco Carrier Ethernet ASICs on the platform, one for the
24x1Gig and another one for the 2x10Gig SFP+ ports (you were right about
the ASIC distribution). There is a non blocking connectivity between the
two ASICs. 10Gig SFP+ ports also support 1xGig Fiber SFP without
license. 

Multicast is done in the egress path and has no performance impact.

 

-Waris

 

-----Original Message-----
From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net
[mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Jeff Bacon
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 11:37 AM
To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: [c-nsp] ME3600X architecture

 

Primarily a question for Waris probably: 

 

Is there anything out there about the "Carrier Ethernet ASIC" or the
overall architecture of the box?

 

Looking at the board itself, it looks as though there's two separate but
identical ASIC complexes on the board. My instinct says that the 10G
ports are run by one ASIC and the 24 1G ports are run by the other ASIC,
with some sort of bridge or bus between 'em. 

 

I only just got my hands on one (and yes of course I ripped it apart) so
I'm only just starting to answer questions - but there's so many nice
docs on the 6500 and 4900s that I'm spoiled... 

 

Thanks! 

-bacon

 

_______________________________________________

cisco-nsp mailing list  cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
<mailto:cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
<https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp> 

archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
<http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/> 



More information about the cisco-nsp mailing list