Performance specs question: Can a Catalyst 6500 ASA SM do 2 Gbps of 3DES/AES + 16 Gb/s of other traffic?

[DAVID YARASHUS]

Kind of a combined performance specs & hardware question here.

The specs say that a Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series ASA Services Module can do a maximum of 2 Gbps of 3DES/AES VPN traffic and 16 Gb/s max of multiprotocol traffic throughput.  But I don't see anything saying what the impact of multiple simultaneous uses is.

Is there an offload processor that allows these both to max out at the same time, or are they using shared CPU resources such that doing about half of max 3DES/AES VPN traffic will cut the forwarding of multiprotocol traffic in approximately half?  If there's a good hardware overview that covers this, I'd appreciate a pointer. TIA.

[Vibhor Amrodia]

Hi,

The 2Gbps limit only applies to the VPN traffic. The Clear Text Traffic is not affected by this limit.

Only judged by the 16 Gbps limit.

Thanks and Regards,

Vibhor Amrodia

[DAVID YARASHUS]

Vibhor,

I've heard that asserted. I'm looking to confirm it and understand it. Is there dedicated hardware for the crypto functions, or can you point me to an explanation of why there is no impact? Thanks,

David

[Vibhor Amrodia]

Hi,

I don't think there might be any documentation listing this specifically.

Thanks and Regards,

Vibhor Amrodia

[DAVID YARASHUS]

Hi, Vibhor.

Are you able to provide a link to any reference hardware documentation that would explain resource allocation to provide insight into this?  IOW, how do you know it? CCO? Cisco Live? Internal TAC documents? Are you a first-hand source who's done the testing?

Thanks,

David