7204 VXR Bandwidth

[sjonessha]

I am a small ISP and will be upgrading our core router and am looking at the capacity of the 7204. I have two internet connections, one a 100 meg with Cogent (maybe increasing to 200 meg) and another 50 meg with another provider. We might be running BGP in the future. We cannot afford the NPE-G1 but looking at the NPE-400. Thank you.

[paolo bevilacqua]

NPE-400 can be barely adequate, but you should really get NPE-G1 or G2. Check refurbished equipment if unable to buy new.

[sjonessha]

That's a good idea. I'll look around. Thank you.

[paolo bevilacqua]

You are welcome. Please rate useful posts with the scrollbox belox.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

I agee with Paolo that a NPE-400 might be barely adequate for supporting 250 Mbps. For that bandwidth you need about 744 Kpps and the NPE-400 only provides 420 Kpps. 744 Kpps is what you need for wire rate, duplex with minimum sized packets, and although it's unlikely you'll push your links that hard, you also need to have CPU for other processes and IOS features, especially if you plan on accepting two full Internet BGP tables.

Depending on your IOS feature requirements, and if your interface handoffs could be Ethernet, you might also look at the various Cisco Metro Ethernet switches.

[sjonessha]

You're right we are currently using a Cisco 3550 with the EMI ios and it has been working, but we probably need to revisit as we are growing. For the next year we will be right at 100 meg and 50 meg while adding BGP sometime. I guess we could start with the NPE-400 and then upgrade, huh?

[Joseph W. Doherty]

You could upgrade later, make sure it's a VXR, not a non-VXR 7200.

Do keep in mind, the VXR will be richer in features than your 3550, but slower in PPS. Even the -G2 is only 2 Mpps vs. 6.6 to 17 Mpps of the 3350s. (Current similar L3 switches are even faster.)

Within the 7200 series, if you're going to stay with Ethernet interfaces, you might also consider the 7201 or the older and slower 7301. These use the G2 and G1 engines, respectively.