Cisco: MPLS Supported Routers and CEF

[worldnews7]

Hello World,

Can someone please clarify the following question, succinctly, without a philosophical diatribe:

The chart I obtained from Cisco shows that only 7200, and a handful of others support MPLS, and must have CEF enabled. Then I began reading other technical literature, and it shows that MPLS is supported, for example, Catalyst 6500 manual states that MPLS is supported in depth. 

Please don't redirect me to Cisco features tool ... as it seems pretty convoluted. Also state the routers that can be MPLS Provider routers vs LERs, etc. 

Thank you kindly in advance!

[Peter Paluch · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Can someone please clarify the following question, succinctly, without a philosophical diatribe:

That may not be easy, considering that your post does not contain an explicit question at all - and in addition, you want to simplify something that is convoluted in its very nature.

However, regarding the MPLS support on various platforms: The snapshot of the document you have posted has a rather old feeling to it. I personally consider it to be outdated.

Whether MPLS is supported on a particular platform - this question is best suited for a Cisco Tech Sales representative because of the vast portfolio of routing/switching products and extremely varied level of supported MPLS features.

As far as MPLS goes, even ISRs (x800 series) and ISR G2 (x900 series) routers support basic MPLS and selected features such as MPLS L3 VPNs. It is not a particularly high performance, though. For switches, MPLS support is more difficult to comment succintly: In general, enterprise Catalysts 3560/3650/3750/3850 do not support MPLS. Metro Ethernet variants of these switches (such as 3750-ME), on the other hand, support MPLS. 6500 and 6800 should generally support MPLS including various features but you must keep an eye on specific supervisors and line cards to be sure. I do not know about Catalyst 4500 series.

In a provider environment, LERs were often 7200 series routers in the past (no support for VPLS, though), and later, 7600 series. Nowadays, ASR 1000 and ASR 9000 series are the routers of choice for the LER function. For the backbone, ASR 9000, CRS-1, CRS-3 are usually the platforms of choice.

Please do not take this as an official and guaranteed information. This is only an extremely simplified overview of platforms, and there can be many exceptions and gotchas.

Best regards,
Peter

[worldnews7]

Thank you. That was a thorough reply. I also found this from Cisco's MPLS for Beginners:

 

Q. What platforms and Cisco IOSes support MPLS?

A. The Cisco Series 2691, 3640, 3660, 3725, 3745, 6400-NRP-1, 6400-NRP-2SV, 6400-NSP, Catalyst 5000 with Route Switch Module (RSM), 7200, 7301, 7400, 7500, Catalyst 6500/Cisco 7600 Series with WS-SUP720-3B and WS-SUP720-3BXL, Gigabit Switch Router (GSR), Route Processor Module (RPM), Universal Broadband Router (UBR) 7200, AS5350, and IGX8400-URM all support MPLS.

These platforms support the Cisco Tag Distribution Protocol (TDP) as the label distribution protocol.

Label Distribution Protocol (LDP), Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) information can be found using the Software Advisor ( registered customers only) tool. Software Advisor provides a complete list of feature sets supported in the different Cisco IOS versions and on different platforms.

[Korban Day]

Finally, someone on these forums that ACTUALLY answers our questions precisely.  Thank you!

[Korban Day]

Dude, he clearly asked a question, and it's the same one I have.  Why isn't there a succinct list of MPLS routers CISCO produces?