Internet Routers (recommendation)

[mbroberson1]

Looking at replacing a couple of internet routers and looking for a good recommendation.

-Use - Internet Edge routers.

-Multihoming to two ISP's revieving full (bgp) internet routes.

Current routers are 2811's and considering upgrading to someting like the 3925 with redundant power supplies and max memory.

Thanks

[paolo bevilacqua]

The most important parameter -What is the actual circuit speed ?

[mbroberson1]

Current circuit speeds are:

ISP#1 - 20MB - ethernet

ISP#2 - 40MB - ethernet

[paolo bevilacqua]

A 2921 might even be sufficient. See attached document.

Please remember to rate useful posts clicking on the stars below.

Message was edited by: Daniel Bruhn document removed due to access restrictions

[guy]

Do you think the 2921s (or the 3925s) would have the CPU power necessary to support full BGP?

[paolo bevilacqua]

Do you think the 2921s (or the 3925s) would have the CPU power necessary to support full BGP?

Yes, otherwise I would nit have made the recommendation.

Even older routers can do BGP without any problem.

What matters is traffic, not routing protocol.

[guy]

HI Paolo,

Thanks for the information and forgive me if I seem a little cynical.

I wanted to double check because we're looking to multi-home our network and, having contacted a number of suppliers, been given different information.

We're looking to have two ISPs, our own AS number and PI IP addresses space.

Suppliers have been happy to suggest 7201s as having sufficient CPU power and memory to each do eBGP with their upstream ISP and iBGP between and each other. I've asked whether the 3925 would have enough CPU power and have receive very vague answers!

Do you know of anyone using 3925s (or similar) routers for multi-homing with full BGP?

[paolo bevilacqua]

I don't think you are cynical but simply not informed. So here's the facts again:

Yes, the 3925, and even a 2811 as mentioned by the OP, are enough for multi-homing BGP.

By the way, a 3925 has a CPU comparable in speed to a 7201. A 3925E then has a much faster CPU.

Yes, there is many people using them for full-table, multi-homed BGP, including customers of mine.

Again, what matters to decide a router is traffic volume, not if BGP is used.

You will likely understand better when you will become operational.

In the meawhile, please remember to rate useful posts clicking on the stars below.

[shillings]

Also consider the CPU power ref the BGP Scanner process which will intermittently take a very large chunk of processing power. Perhaps that's why they recommend a 7200.

And what about future upgrades to your WAN? Makes sense when investing this sort of money to ensure any investment can support higher throughput IMO. 2951 can handle 100Mbps (on paper), but not sure about the CPU requirements as mentioned above.

[paolo bevilacqua]

Once again:

The 3925 and the 7201 have a comparable CPU power. This is demonstrated by the fact that their raw packet per second capacity is within a 10% difference, I can post the referencing documents if you want.

Consequently, they have the same almost CPU power to process packet input, BGP scanner, or whatever router process or activity.

Also please note, the published performance data is not just "paper numbers". They reflect the hard, scrupulous work of the Cisco Engineers that were give the task of finding real rather marketing numbers. The overall recommendation is then made on a worst case assumption, that is enabling such a complex set of features simultaneously.

Please note, I'm in no way trying to downsell the 7201. It is a great product, child of the Business Unit for which I have worked many years. However, is it not the fastest "small" router available, neither the more versatile, neither the obliged choice for Enterprise BGP multi-homing.

[shillings]

Thanks Paolo.

[mbroberson1]

Hi everyone. I am the OPer. I'd like to say Thank you to everyone who contributed to this post. I certainly have learned a thing or two.

fyi - I will be ordering the 3925 (non-e) and just maxing out the memory.

Regards,

-BR

[guy]

I'd be very interested to see how it turns out and what the spec of the router and the performance you get is. In particular, total RAM, link speeds, number of BGP routes and CPU utilisation.

Happy New Year!

Guy

[mbroberson1]

Hi Guy,

I'll post the info (complete router specs & BGP info) when it becomes available. I guess first things first...have to get mgt to sign off on the ordering...;-).

Happy New Year!

-BR

[guy]

Did you ever get the sign off?

Regards,

Guy