ASR1001X additional EBGP peer

[James Lasky]

Dear all
I'd like to have you recommandation.

Our customer run on ASR1001X an EBGP peering with one ISP and some internal IBGP peering with other sites of the customer.

ASR1001xxx#sh ip bgp summary
BGP router identifier 185.x.xxx, local AS number 12111
BGP table version is 165259260, main routing table version 165259260
791972 network entries using 196409056 bytes of memory
2581993 path entries using 330495104 bytes of memory
458319/118958 BGP path/bestpath attribute entries using 120996216 bytes of memory
233298 BGP AS-PATH entries using 11620238 bytes of memory
84 BGP community entries using 2704 bytes of memory
0 BGP route-map cache entries using 0 bytes of memory
0 BGP filter-list cache entries using 0 bytes of memory
BGP using 659523318 total bytes of memory
BGP activity 5705457/4913485 prefixes, 122354684/119772691 paths, scan interval 60 secs

Neighbor     V         AS MsgRcvd MsgSent   TblVer    InQ OutQ Up/Down  State/PfxRcd
80.14.x.1    4         32x 2702998   53942 165259167       0    0 1w4d       791619
185.71.x.1   4        121xx 28908450 37253524 165259260    0    0 31w0d      756795
185.71.x.2   4        121xx 36083442 31272759 165259260    0    0 26w0d      276292
185.71.x.3   4        121xx 28549167 37251270 165259260    0    0 31w0d      757279

We'd like to add a new EBGP peering with full routing received from a second carrier in order to load balance traffic (mainly in output), the question is: do you see any issue in terms of performance/memory/else in adding a new EBGP peering ?
Which is the best way to try to load balance in output ?

From output following I am not sure if going to upgrade to 16G or not...

Thanks in advance for your help!
Cheers

ASR1001xxx#sh ver
Cisco IOS XE Software, Version 16.03.07
Cisco IOS Software [Denali], ASR1000 Software (X86_64_LINUX_IOSD-UNIVERSALK9-M), Version 16.3.7, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc4)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2018 by Cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Sat 04-Aug-18 00:51 by mcpre

Cisco IOS-XE software, Copyright (c) 2005-2018 by cisco Systems, Inc.
All rights reserved.  Certain components of Cisco IOS-XE software are
licensed under the GNU General Public License ("GPL") Version 2.0.  The
software code licensed under GPL Version 2.0 is free software that comes
with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  You can redistribute and/or modify such
GPL code under the terms of GPL Version 2.0.  For more details, see the
documentation or "License Notice" file accompanying the IOS-XE software,
or the applicable URL provided on the flyer accompanying the IOS-XE
software.

ROM: IOS-XE ROMMON

ASR1001xxx uptime is 31 weeks, 47 minutes
Uptime for this control processor is 31 weeks, 49 minutes
System returned to ROM by reload at 08:25:36 CET Sun Aug 4 2019
System restarted at 08:29:12 CET Sun Aug 4 2019
System image file is "bootflash:asr1001x-universalk9.16.03.07.SPA.bin"
Last reload reason: Reload Command

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License Type: Permanent
License Level: ipbase
Next reload license Level: ipbase

cisco ASR1001-X (1NG) processor (revision 1NG) with 3728595K/6147K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID FXS2036Q39H
6 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
2 Ten Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
32768K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
8388608K bytes of physical memory.
6594559K bytes of eUSB flash at bootflash:.
0K bytes of  at harddisk:.
0K bytes of  at webui:.

Configuration register is 0x2102

ASR1001xxx#sh cef fib
792336 allocated IPv4 entries, 0 failed allocations
1 allocated IPv6 entry, 0 failed allocations

ASR1001xxx#show platform software status control-processor brief
Load Average
 Slot  Status  1-Min  5-Min 15-Min
  RP0 Healthy   0.19   0.17   0.14

Memory (kB)
 Slot  Status    Total     Used (Pct)     Free (Pct) Committed (Pct)
  RP0 Healthy  8058752  5470576 (68%)  2588176 (32%)   6986084 (87%)

CPU Utilization
 Slot  CPU   User System   Nice   Idle    IRQ   SIRQ IOwait
  RP0    0   1.10   2.50   0.00  96.20   0.00   0.20   0.00
         1   1.20   0.90   0.00  97.90   0.00   0.00   0.00
         2   0.50   0.50   0.00  99.00   0.00   0.00   0.00
         3   0.49   0.79   0.00  98.70   0.00   0.00   0.00
         4   0.89   1.59   0.00  97.50   0.00   0.00   0.00
         5   8.10   0.60   0.00  91.29   0.00   0.00   0.00
         6   0.70   0.50   0.00  98.80   0.00   0.00   0.00
         7   0.70   1.20   0.00  98.10   0.00   0.00   0.00

ASR1001xxx#sh memory
                Head    Total(b)     Used(b)     Free(b)   Lowest(b)  Largest(b)
Processor  7FAA04789010   3817942128   1879191444   1938750684   1929980360   1931880324
 lsmpi_io  7FA9FF9FF1A8     6295128     6294304         824         824         412

[Hussain7639]

Dear James,

I suggest to go throw the datasheet URL below(Table 3.             Cisco ASR 1000 Series Service Provider Applications):

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/asr-1000-series-aggregation-services-routers/datasheet-c78-731632.html

plus some recommendation to Verify and Troubleshoot

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/ip/border-gateway-protocol-bgp/25160-bgp-maximum-prefix.html

Best Regards,

[Cristian Matei]

Hi,

    Use "show processes memory | in BGP" to see how much memory does BGP actually consume. It is recommended to have 1GB free of memory for a new EBGP peering with full Internet table, however since you already have one such peering, the consumption will be lower. 

   Run the above command, see if you still have like 1GB of memory available, if you do, add the new BGP peer and closely watch the memory consumption after it comes up.

   As for egress load-balancing, based on the BGP attributes you get from both IPS's (how different or alike they are), your options are:

           - ingress AS-path prepending or ingress MED set

           - multipath

Regards,

Cristian Matei.

[James Lasky]

Hi

Thanks for the feedback.

I have a doubt, if I change the RAM upgrading from 8GB to 16GB, do I risk to loose the configuration and IOS? I guess these are in the flash and not in RAM but I do not find the info on cisco.com

Can you please help?

Cheers 

James

[Cristian Matei]

Hi,

    Upgrading your RAM will not cause you to loose your configuration. Config is not stored in RAM which is volatile.

Regards,

Cristian Matei.

[paul driver]

Hello

On a side note, if your rtrs and its peers support route-refresh then would strongly suggest you use this capability if your not  doing so already and remove any soft-inbound reconfiguration which is very resource intensive

sh ip bgp neighbors | s Neighbor capabilities
router bgp xx
no neighbor x.x.x.x soft-reconfiguration inbound