Memory Requirements for Full Table BGP

[johnstack8]

I need to replace some soon to be EOL routers for edge BGP routing at 1 Gbps. We interface with three providers through two devices and need to handle 3 x full table routing.

The 8200L looks to be a good platform at a reasonable price for our needs. Will the base C8200L-1N-4T with 8GB of RAM be enough, or would upgrading to 16 GB be advisable?

I can't find memory recommendations that are less than 20 years old and would appreciate any guidance you can offer.

Thanks in advance!

[balaji.bandi]

8GB is good enough, if you have other requirement suggest to go for 16G now a days not big cost compare to old days.

even 4GB worked for me old days being ISP.

some guidance of RAM BGP :

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/ip/border-gateway-protocol-bgp/12512-41.html

[johnstack8]

> 8GB is good enough, if you have other requirement suggest to go for 16G now a days

Have you tested with 8GB on this or similar platforms running IOS XE?

[balaji.bandi]

IOX XE 17.9.4a works as expected with full BGP.

[johnstack8]

That's great to hear, could you by any chance share with the community the output of show ip bgp summary and show processes memory | include BGP?

Thanks very much for your help!

[MHM Cisco World]

Did you check ASR1k I think it best than 8200L.

MHM

[johnstack8]

MHM,

This refurb ASR is being sold for 20k USD: https://www.cdw.com/product/cisco-asr-1001-x-router-rack-mountable/3530074

A new 8200L is ~ 1.6k USD: https://www.cdw.com/product/cisco-catalyst-8200l-1n-4t-router-rack-mountable/6532782

While the ASR certainly brings a lot more to the table and is more scalable I am interested in more reasonably priced solutions for this specific need.

[Giuseppe Larosa · Accepted solution]

Hello @johnstack8 ,

the device needs to handle 3 full internet peers I recommend to use 16GB .

For sure ASR 1000 is a device widely deployed for this role. For Catalyst 8200L it is important to verify that the CPU is powerful

enough and its TCAM table is great enough to be able to handle traffic in hardware with more then 900,000 entries in CEF.

see ordering guide

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/catalyst-8300-series-edge-platforms/cat-8300-8200-series-edge-plat-og.html

DRAM and Flash – All Catalyst 8300 and 8200 edge platforms ship with a default 8 GB DRAM, with an option to upgrade to 16 GB or 32 GB on a single DIMM slot except for the 8200L which ships with default 4GB DRAM. Likewise, all the Catalyst 8300 and 8200 platforms ship with a default of 8 GB Flash soldered onto the motherboard and it is not upgradeable.

and the datasheet

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/catalyst-8200-series-edge-platforms/nb-06-cat8200-series-edge-plat-ds-cte-en.html#Platformperformance

Number of IPv4 routes

1.6M with default 8 GB, up to 4M with 32 GB

800,000 with default 4 GB, up to 4M with 32 GB

Hope to help

Giuseppe

[johnstack8]

The system architecture document indicates the 8200 has "data plane performance is boosted to 3.8 Gbps, with a 352-byte average IMIX packet size." With enough memory to handle the routes we should be able to handle symmetric gig throughput.

Thanks very much everyone for your input on this question, really appreciate the help from the community.