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Cisco 4K Router

xshant
Level 1
Level 1

Hi,

 

When selecting a Cisco 4K router which provides 2Gb throughput i am looking at the throughput on the below data sheet:

 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/4000-series-integrated-services-routers-isr/data_sheet-c78-732542.html

 

Both 4331 and 4351 provides more than 2gb throughput with boost license, are these numbers valid and what does "Aggregate CEF Only" mean?

 

Thanks,

Aamir

9 Replies 9

Leo Laohoo
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame
"Aggregate" means the entire chassis can process up to 2 Gbps (and not on a "per-port/interface").

thanks so whats the difference between aggregate throughput and aggregate CEF only throughput?  

so technically.. CEF Throughput is somehow a logical version of Bandwidth? While Throughput is the actual physical Bandwidth we get.

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

"Aggregate", as already explained by @Leo Laohoo, means the total forwarding capacity of the router, but there are some very important conditions and notes when using a boost license (which, BTW, is just removing the software performance limits - basically the same as prior gen ISRs that didn't have software performance limits).

Firstly, there's mention to reach this performance, only built in Ethernet ports might be used.  (Why?  Because these routers often have less physical bandwidth to their modules.)

Secondly, often this throughput is based on an IMIX traffic with no additional features (like NAT, ACLs, QoS, crypto, etc.) being used.  (Why?  Additional features consume processing resources reducing throughput capacity.  Also, smaller sized packets, rather than used by IMIX, also consume additional processing resources.)

A critically important couple of words used with the boost license is "up to".

If you want a 4k than can (almost always) guarantee 2 Gbps (nb: enough for just two duplex gig ports), you'll want a 4k that has a 2Gbps, or better, performance license.

However, if you're sure your traffic mix and/or configuration will not be more resource demanding than basic IMIX, a boost license would be fine.

Lastly, I'm replying from my phone, so difficult to provide attachments, otherwise I would attach a nice Cisco white paper on router performance impact of packet sizes and feature usage to throughput (10x delta not unusual between worst and best) and some Miercom performance test results.


@Joseph W. Doherty wrote:
but there are some very important conditions and notes when using a boost license

This is the universal rule-of-thumb but there is one exception that I know off:  CSCvi80270.

That's the kind of bug vendors often give a lot of priority to "fix".

Reminds me of a story a neighbor told me, from when he worked as a county employee doing weight and measure certifications.

One day, he was in a gas station, where they pump a gallon of fuel into a gallon container to insure that a gallon was pumped according to the pump meter.  They do both high flow and low flow tests.  On the one pump, he found the pump, at low flow, pumped a gallon but registered it as just a half gallon pumped.  When the station manager was notified, he really, really wanted to fix that pump!  ; )


@Joseph W. Doherty wrote:
That's the kind of bug vendors often give a lot of priority to "fix".

(Un)fortunately, this is not the case.

The ENTIRE 3.16.X is affected by this bug (from 3.16.1 to 3.16.10).  Cisco did not want to fix this bug when it was first spotted.  They said it was not worth it (because nobody was meant to know about this bug).  Anyone can leverage this bug with any version from the 3.16.X train.  

Since 3.16.X &/or ASR 1000X is already past end-of-support, I am happy to share this welcome "feature" with everyone.

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