ME3600X L3 performance

[johnelliot6]

Hi,

Looking at using the ME3600 to terminate VRF's (with Advanced Metro IP Access) and am trying to confirm what L3 performance they have? (Looked at the router and switch performance pdf's but no info on the me3600/3800's?)

Cheers.

[Alessio Andreoli]

Hi John,

i have being working with the exact machines you are talking about for more than a year. The L3 performances were good enough also for a medium sized Bank. They are quite flexible and no too much to worry about. Find below a link which could help you out in deciding:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10956/products_installation_and_configuration_guides_list.html

I would mind to double-check your overall design before making any choice. should you want to reda something more about the device itself here you can:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps6568/ps10956/data_sheet_c78-601946.html

Take care

Alessio

[johnelliot6]

Thanks - Do you have any L3 performance details on the ME3600's? i.e. PPS/Mb? 

Cheers.

[Alessio Andreoli]

Hi John,

it is at the bottom of the second link i sent you. there are slightly different values depending on the model.

Alessio

[johnelliot6]

Thanks - I can see 65 Mpps forwarding rate - Is this the L3 performance? So it performs better @L3 than an ASR1K?

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

In general, PPS rates for L3 switches are the same for forwarding L2 frames and/or L3 packets.  So, yes, believe the 65 Mpps applies to L3 packet forwarding too.

Also yes, the 65 Mpps might be faster than many of the ASR1K RPs.  (NB: this isn't uncommon for L3 switches.)  What the ASR1K provides is many features not found on an inexpensive L3 switch, such as much more advanced QoS support to different media support.