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10 Gbps interfaces on Cisco 3945 Router

Mauro Antivero
Level 1
Level 1

Hello to all.

I work in an ISP and we are using two Cisco 3945e routers as edge routers. I have two questions about them:

1)_ Can anyone tell me what is the "Internet traffic capacity" that this model of router is capable of manage? In this document:

http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/765/tools/quickreference/routerperformance.pdf

Says that this router can manage approx. 500 Mbps of Internet traffic, but I know that is capable of much more, the question is "how much more"? I understand that Cisco ensures the correct behavior of the router until 500 Mbps, but currently one of my routers is working at 1 Gbps (with two bonded interfaces) with no problem and the peak CPU usage is less than 20%.

2)_ Is there any 10 Gbps interface card for this model? We don't plan to reach 10 Gbps on this router of course, but we need more than 1 Gbps in only one interface (I mean, without bonding two or more interfaces).

Thanks a lot in advance and best regards,

Mauro.

 

4 Replies 4

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Disclaimer

 

The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

First, in your referenced document, the performance is for a 3945, not the 3945e.  The latter has about 3x the performance of the former.

In the attached Cisco white paper, Cisco recommends a 3945e for up to 350 Mpbs of WAN (i.e. duplex) bandwidth.  However, if you look at table one, 64 byte PPS is listed as 2.924 Mpps, good for about 3 Gbps, and for 1500 byte packet bandwidth is listed as 8.675 Gbps.  So, depending on your device configuration, and your traffic mix's packet sizes, your CPU usage isn't really unexpected.

To your question on how much more performance you might obtain.  Well, again for you traffic mix and configuration, if you're peaking under 20%, in theory, maybe up to 5x your current traffic average.  However, NM and EHWIC cards are noted as supporting 2 Gbps aggregate bandwidth, between module slots, across the MGF.  That would preclude 10G modules, and the MGF, itself, would likely also become a bottleneck if you try to load the router up with additional gig ports.

Joseph, first of all, thanks a lot for your answer, it helps me a lot. Now some comments / questions:

I can't find any attached document, can you send it again or tell me the document name so I can find it? It would be very useful to me.

Can you please give a very short brief about the NM and EHWIC cards and MGF? Right now I'm googling it, but any help is welcome (my knowledge of Cisco's different type of modules and interfaces is almost null as you can see).

I understand now that a 10 Gbps module It would be a waste, but, is posible? This module for this router exists? If I could get 2 Gbps in one unique port would be perfect for now (of course that we are planning an upgrade to a "biggest" router or L3 switch, but that gonna takes some time).

Thanks a lot again and best regards,

Mauro.

 

Disclaimer

The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

Oops, forgot to attach (this posting has the Cisco whitepaper).

NM: Network Module - larger module slot - often takes multiple switch port cards - in older ISRs, often offered the most bandwidth to the card

EHWIC: Enhanced High-speed WAN Interface Card - Original WICs were modular WAN interface port cards - later variants increased bandwidth to card (to support FE and GE)

MGF: multi-gig fabric - see http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/access/interfaces/software/feature/guide/mgfcfg.html

As far as I know, there's no 10g ports for an ISR 39xx.  I think you need to get up to an ASR 1K, before 10G interfaces are provided.

 

akemp0001
Level 1
Level 1

For most Cisco routers, following the generic RFC 2544 standard, utilizing CEF, the theoretical PPS for a given router is:  Mbps = (64 bytes * 8 bits/byte * PPS) / 1000000.  A Cisco 3945 router cna handle up to 982000 PPS, which equates to roughly 502.78 Mbps with CEF.  A Cisco 3945E router can handle up to 2924000 PPS, which equates to roughly 1497.09 Mbps with CEF.  This is aggregated across all interfaces on a given platform.  If no router features are utilized, you will basically get wire speed, which is much higher.  Miercom rates the 3945 at 2988.69 Mbps with IMIX packets (varied size), and they rate the 3945E at 3816.99 Mbps.  If utilizing a set size of 1500 bytes per packet, with no features utilized, the 3945 can handle 8025 Mbps, and the 3945E can handle 8675 Mbps, respectively, at the platform level.

 

Having said all this, 10 Gbps is not possible due to the router's interfaces being limited to 1 Gbps.  If you really wanted to attempt to maximize router bandwidth, install something like a 4-port EWHIC module and create a single EtherChannel for a combined 4 Gbps pipe, connecting back to a multiport gigabit switch in the internal network.  Then set up all three of the 3945's gigabit routing interfaces (or four if it's a 3945E) to interface with an external gateway switch; this switch would exist between both your company's border router and the other end (e.g. ISP or other established border router).

 

Another option is to implement GLBP.  Assign an outgoing interface on each device to a single virtual IP address.  Both of the 3945 routers would be in an active/active state for load balancing.

 

The only thing I am not sure of is whether GLBP can be used in a manner to integrate multiple interfaces collectively within a single router, then combining multiple routers on top of that, to create one really huge pipe going to the Internet.  I realize this post is somewhat old now, so the solution now might be to just upgrade to an ASR 9001 router, which has 10 Gbps interfaces.

 

References

----------

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-2950-series-switches/24042-158.html

http://ciscorouterswitch.over-blog.com/article-glbp-glbp-basic-configuration-113566109.html

https://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_2t/12_2t15/feature/guide/ft_glbp.html#wp1027173

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/ios-nx-os-software/ip-services/product_data_sheet0900aecd803a546c.html

 

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