MPPS verus MBPS

[jimb]

I want to compare a Cisco 3750 to a 3comm 4200 gig switch. My boss is concerned about the price diffential. The 3comm has a forwarding rate of 65.5 Mpps, while the 3750 has a forwarding rate of 36 MPPS. The problem is comparing MBPS, and MPPS. It's an apples and oranges thing. How do I relate the two?

[jackyoung]

We normally calculate the performance on both figures. Mpps = Mega packet per second, Mbps = Mega bit per second.

And I prefer to use Mpps, it was because different vendor will use different packet size for the thourghput (Mbps) result, e.g. if use 64 bytes packet and 1Mpps, it will be 64Mbps if use 1500 bytes packet and 1Mpps, it will be 1500Mbps. The result will be much difference. So use PPS will be more better. But we also need to research the actual throughput of the equipment instead just read the spec.

Hope this helps.

[spremkumar]

Hi

MPPS stands for million packets per second and Cisco prefers to refer throughput in MPPS.

regds