MPLS VPN on C7200 series, looking for switch

[desmond.liew]

Hi All,

I am considering a Cisco 7204VXR router to do MPLS VPN. In my design, there will be two PEs, in between is a 1Gb link where multiple customers will share.

On both PEs, I need a switch where each individual customer will connect in via one port. On that switch, I will have a VRF for that customer.

My question is:

1. What model of switch must I get to support 1Gb of traffic?

2. What methods can I 'integrate' this with the C7200?

3. What addon modules do I need on the C7204? Will the NPE-G1 be sufficient for 1G traffic?

Initially, I thought of using C3945 with a 24 port switch module (SM-ES3-24-P) but I've read service providers using the C7200 for MPLS VPN so was wondering what they are using on the switch end.

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[Giuseppe Larosa]

Hello Desmond,

1) as L2 switch almost all devices with GE ports are suitable for the task. if you look at using this as a Multi VRF CE you need something better then a C2960 but a C3750 or better. This would mean that the device works at OSI layer3.

Notice that devices like C3560 or C3750 may have a limit on number of VRFs supported that can be small (8 for C3560 in older IOS versions). So the number of VRFs to be supported plays a role here.

2)  an 802.1Q L2 trunk is enough one vlan for each customer/VRF. if using Multi VRF CE the C7200 will peer with the Multi VRF CE otherwise it will just have a connected route.

3) if possible use the built in ports on the NPE-G1 between two ports of the NPE-G1 you can go at 1,000,000 packet per second so it is not really line rate for small packets but it is enough for average traffic.

Hope to help

Giuseppe

[desmond.liew]

Hi Giuseppe,

Thanks for your reply. That's very enlightening.

1. Since switches have a VRF limit, I think the best way is a L2 switch and create VLANs for each clients. Then I'll trunk those VLANs to the C7204VXR (with NPE-G1). Then I don't need to worry how much VRF left on my switch and worry about the speed of the switch's switching fabric. Is that right?

2. Talking about the NPE-G1, someone introduced to me a Cisco document which states that the C7200 series supports an aggregated bandwidth of 300Mb. But different NPEs has different pps. If a packet size is 1500 bytes (MTU size) and NPE- G1 supports 1,000,000pps, does that mean it can support 1.5GBps?

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[desmond.liew]

Here is that document which states the amount of aggregated bandwidth supported (page 7)

http://cisco.biz/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps6537/ps6557/prod_white_paper0900aecd8051fbdc.pdf

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