[IPv6] - Need advice on cisco router capacity/specification to support large IPv6 network

[Alexander Simbun]

Hello experts,

I need some advice about choosing suitable router's specification/model to support large IPv6 network. To date, our company has close to 600 remote sites with a mixture of different connectivity such as VSAT, leased-line, Metro-E and ADSL. All these are under MPLS/L3-VPN network provided by our ISP. Our network is running dual-stack and currently we gradually enabling some selected sites for IPv6 and will proceed with the rest of the sites before end of this year. The question is how do I choose a router that can support large dual-stack network like ours ? What is the criteria or what is your recommendation for me to get a suitable router which not only supports our current network but as well as the future addition of our remote sites? 

Our current main router specification as follow:

Model: Cisco ASR1002

RAM: 4GB

Interface B/W: 500Mbps 

Kindly advice.

Thank you very much

Alex

[Philip D'Ath]

The ASR is a good family.  How much bandwidth have you got coming into your main site from all the remote sites?

[Alexander Simbun]

Hello Phillip,

Currently we have 500Mbps for almost 600 sites.

Regards,

Alex

[Philip D'Ath]

What what is the memory utilisation like?

[Alexander Simbun]

Hi Phillips,

Average 40% based on our monitoring system.

Regards,

Alex

[Philip D'Ath]

Worst case you might need to upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 8GB - but I doubt it.

[Alexander Simbun]

Thank you Phillips! Appreciate it! 

Alex

[Philip D'Ath · Accepted solution]

I think you have more than enough hardware (ASR 1002) to manage an IPv6 network with 600 remote sites.  I think you are likely to have oodles of spare capacity.

[Alexander Simbun]

Hi. 

Btw, is there some sort of guidelines on what product or network devices' specification to be consider when implementing/deploying large dual-stack network similar like our network with 600 remote sites and able to cater close to a thousand remote sites in the future?

If there's any guideline available. I would like to have it.

Alex 

[Philip D'Ath]

Cisco Press have a book called "Deploying IPv6 Networks" which I think is pretty good.