I was wondering if anybody has ever been able to compare the performance of routers doing CEF switching vs. fast switching (or one of its variants like optimum switching) in an environment where routes change rarely (like an enterprise, not an ISP, as I think we all agree that CEF is very useful in a highly dynamic environment like an ISP). Yes, I am well aware of CEF's advantages, like that you can quickly switch all packets of a flow without having to process-switch the first packet, that there is greater intelligence in CEF as regards to subnet masks, and that you can do more kinds of load-balancing. All very useful in an ISP environment, I'm sure. But I have also heard that the CEF implementation still has some bugs, particularly in the lower line of routers like the 2600. So my question is, in an enterprise environment where there are maybe only 10's or 100's of routes, and those routes rarely change anyway, how much better is CEF really compared to, say, fast-switching. If your routers are CEF-able, should you always have it on, no matter how small your network is? If not, how large would you say a network has to be before CEF becomes viable? Naturally, there is no hard and fast rule. I am just looking for a general synopsis of what people think. Thanx Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=4713&t=4713 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
