[f-nsp] NetIron MLX Experience..

[Gunther Stammwitz]

> If you're familiar with Cisco 6500/7600 boxes, the MLX is to 
> the SUP720-3B as the XMR is to the SUP720-3BXL (except on the 
> Foundrys there is no PFC, and every card has an integrated 
> DFC which isn't upgradable :P). That means roughly 256k v4 
> routes on the MLX, and 1M v4 routes on the XMR, give or take 
> depending on what other things you try to do with the boxes 
> (v6, mpls, etc).
> 

I don't agree.

The MLX can handle up to 512K IPV4 Routes in hardware (=the FIB) and the
total size of possible BGP4 IPV4-routes in the RIB is 2 millions. This means
you can have up to four full views with 512k routes each.

The foundry box is much more powerful than the Cisco gear you mentioned and
cannot be compared since forwarding is done in hardware on the line cards
and not via software like the 7600 does.


Below is a comparison between the different foundry boxes one can buy:

Attributes	BigIron RX	NetIron MLX	NetIron XMR
IPv4 HW Routes	512K	512K	1M
IPv4 BGP Routes	1M/4M	2M	4M
BGP Peers	128	256	500
L3 VPN Instances	N/A	400	2K
VLL/VPLS Instances	N/A	4K	16K
Outbound ACL	N/A	Yes	Yes
MAC Addresses	16K	1M	2M

Gunther