RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
Based on our testing it looks like it all has to do with packet size. With small packets the throughput is very low. With what Cisco calls an internet mix of packet sizes throughput is much better. When doing max MTU packets, the throughput is of course the best. Also remember that Cisco as well as most other vendors advertise one way traffic only. If you have traffic on the return path, that counts against their numbers. So 40 pps one way is the same to them as 20 pps both ways. Interesting thread Thanks. -Original Message- From: Gary [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 12:12 AM To: Adam Rothschild Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back) Adam: [...] Sort of like buying a GbE interface for a 7200 (It only get's 10% throughput... Why waste the money, just buy FE!). How did the Foundry test lab arrive at those figures, and what substances were consumed at the time? I used a Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400. I used two different 7200's with the exact same results. Bidirectional throughput on 1GbE is a fraction above 10%. Unidirectional is a bit better (23%). Singl line ACL drops it to 8% (permit ip any any). FE performance doesn't start to drop below line rate until you put more than two in the box. I have a powerpoint if you'd like it, but it is not meant to slander Cisco, just to convince my customers NOT to put GbE in a 7200! It is not a GbE platform!
RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
Based on our testing it looks like it all has to do with packet size. With small packets the throughput is very low. With what Cisco calls an internet mix of packet sizes throughput is much better. When doing max MTU packets, the throughput is of course the best. The other thing I've found about traffic type is how sensitive netflow is. I was running it for a while, then I got a co-lo customer that had a lot of UDP traffic with small packet sizes and rarely more than a few packets between the same src/dest ip/port (much like DNS queries). It was enough to flatline the box and cause it to crash. -Ralph
RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
did you do netflow switching or cef + netflow accounting that time? -- Tomas Daniska systems engineer Tronet Computer Networks Plynarenska 5, 829 75 Bratislava, Slovakia tel: +421 2 58224111, fax: +421 2 58224199 A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. -Original Message- From: Ralph Doncaster [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 22. mája 2002 16:15 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back) Based on our testing it looks like it all has to do with packet size. With small packets the throughput is very low. With what Cisco calls an internet mix of packet sizes throughput is much better. When doing max MTU packets, the throughput is of course the best. The other thing I've found about traffic type is how sensitive netflow is. I was running it for a while, then I got a co-lo customer that had a lot of UDP traffic with small packet sizes and rarely more than a few packets between the same src/dest ip/port (much like DNS queries). It was enough to flatline the box and cause it to crash. -Ralph
RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
Richard: And if^H^Hwhen you run into a really fun issue, don't even think about calling Foundry TAC after hours, all you'll get is someone's house with their screaming kids in the background. Our TAC is 24/7 and has been 24/7 for years. I work in the Support Center for Japan. We have not gone 24/7 yet, but it is under investigation. Sitting 2 feet from me is a gentleman who has been working with Foundry products since '97. He has called almost every day since then and not once has had the problem you described. I did not mention to him why I was asking these questions and he is honest. Did you call the wrong number? This looks a bit personal... Gary
Re: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
On 2002-05-21-01:12:25, Gary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I used a Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400. I used two different 7200's with the exact same results. Bidirectional throughput on 1GbE is a fraction above 10%. Unidirectional is a bit better (23%). Singl line ACL drops it to 8% (permit ip any any). FE performance doesn't start to drop below line rate until you put more than two in the box. I have a powerpoint if you'd like it, but it is not meant to slander Cisco, just to convince my customers NOT to put GbE in a 7200! It is not a GbE platform! Send it over, I'd be interested in how you're conducting these tests. I'm not trying to accuse you of lying or slandering your competitors or anything, but well, those numbers sound a bit funny. Besides, that's really an apples to oranges comparison. [...] My powerpoint compares the 7200 with the FastIron 4802 Premium. It is line rate with less than 7 us latency on the two GbE ports. I tested this myself. I can forward this to you if you like. It is a bunch of SmartApps screen captures of the testing. Not a meaningful comparison; vastly different architectures and purposes. I'd be more interested in seeing empirical data comparing the FastIron 4802 to... say... a Catalyst 2948G-L3 or Extreme Summit 48i. Maybe a Cat6k/MSFC2 as well, seeing as the pricing is roughly comparable in the used hardware market, even if the density is not. I really like the 7200 VXR. It is a good 10M and minimum FE platform. It can switch DS0 on the midplane and it supports a wide array of interfaces! Sounds reminiscent of the dot.gone wastefulness that killed many companies. :-) -a
Re: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 04:55:51PM +0900, Gary wrote: Richard: And if^H^Hwhen you run into a really fun issue, don't even think about calling Foundry TAC after hours, all you'll get is someone's house with their screaming kids in the background. Our TAC is 24/7 and has been 24/7 for years. I work in the Support Center for Japan. We have not gone 24/7 yet, but it is under investigation. Sitting 2 feet from me is a gentleman who has been working with Foundry products since '97. He has called almost every day since then and not once has had the problem you described. I did not mention to him why I was asking these questions and he is honest. Did you call the wrong number? This looks a bit personal... I didn't say it wasn't 24/7, I just said it rang through to someones house with their screaming kids in the background on a regular basis. I do know how to operate a telephone, thanks. :) And it's nothing personal, I have actually been one of Foundry's biggest supporters compared to almost every other engineer I know. Everyone else gave up using them in layer 3 a long time ago. -- Richard A Steenbergen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
Re: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 07:27:35AM +0200, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote: I have personally seen a 7200 with PXF-chip and two PA-GE do NAT at 300megabit with a few (10-15) ftp streams going thru it. With more random load it wouldn't go much above 100 meg, though. I have done 400Mbit with an NPE400, though that's pushing the box close to its limits. But really, a good engineer knows his tools and knows how to choose them for the task. If you want to push 900Mbps, you don't pick a router with a central software based route lookup system and PCI based backplane. On the other hand, if you need to do complex things, a 7200 may be your best bet simply because of its simplicity. All the nasty bugs that make using a GSR so miserable almost never manifest themselves on a 7200. If you're adventurous you can even install the latest code and probably not pay for your transgression against the IOS gods within 48 hours. :) And please, lab tests doesnt show it all. Does the Foundry have a route cache? How many entries? I have seen equipment that performs perfectly in the lab start to bog down when you put real traffic on them, because of route cache limitations (for instance, 256.000 entries starts to be problematic when you have thousands of customers running real internet traffic thru the device). A classic Foundry flaw, which you can get around to some extent with ip net-agg or dr-agg. I've found it best to treat a Foundry doing layer 3 like you would a 7500. You know, tiptoe when you walk by it, try not to give it any funny looks, only login to it when you REALLY need to, only make changes at 2am, etc, it is usable in a customer aggregation role. Anything more is tempting fate. And if^H^Hwhen you run into a really fun issue, don't even think about calling Foundry TAC after hours, all you'll get is someone's house with their screaming kids in the background. -- Richard A Steenbergen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
