Need an upgrade from Cisco7200VFX w/ NPE-G2

[dialtelusa]

Hello,

I have a cisco7200VFX with NPE-G2 Card installed. As you know the Cisco itself is not very powerful until you install that card. But now we are going to hit the limit for this card so we are looking for something more powerful.

Alot of people recommend moving to an ASR1000 series router. Now I am just unfamiliar with these particular routers. I thought there was something "special" about them that would make them not work for my application but getting the feeling it was just me not knowing what the heck I was doing...

Anyhow I am now researching them and having trouble figuring out just what to purchase. I get the feeling they are similar to the 7200 series in that the actual shell of the router has some Eth0/0 connection that will not serve my purpose... I take it some card needs to be installed to add the power...

Does anyone know more about these routers? What is the model card that we put into it that will give it the juice I need? Remember I am almost maxed out of the NPE-G2 card and one of my issues is that I do not know how to take one GIG connection and divert into multiple routers or cards while maintaining one network so I was looking for one card that will allow me to keep my one network running strong.

Sorry if I seem like a novice. While I program the routers to the basic configuration I am not well educated with routers in general so I live within my confines.

[dialtelusa]

I found this router here..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Sealed-ASR1000-ESP5-ASR1000-Embedded-Services-Processor-5G-/370963437847?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565f24d917

Now when I look at the routing performace sheet that I attached one key indicator we used in getting the 7200-NPE-G2 was that it had 2,000,000 Fast CEF Switching. So in looking to upgrade I saw the ASR1000-ESP5 is listed as having 8,840,000. That would be 4 times more powerful.. Now just for some extra information we can only use about 300MB max before we hit 100% CPU on our NPE-G2 and that is when we are running roughly 4000 channels of SIP Traffic... We do have FAST CEF Enabled so we are optimized the best we can be on this router...

What really confuses me however is that the link above to the ASR1000-ESP5 seems to good to be true... Mainly because we purchased our NPE-G2 engine alone for $4000 and this value still holds true in the market... As you see the link above it is about the same amount for a router that is roughly 4.5 times more powerful... I definitely do not want to spend $4000 and find out that it is missing some $30,000 card needed to give it the 8.8 million FAST CEF Capability. Therefore I am really depending on this user community to save the day for me!

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime I am trying my best to educate myself and be proactive about the situation I am in.

[Joseph W. Doherty · Accepted solution]

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The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

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In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

The ASR1K series is the logical replacement for the 7200 and 7300 series.

There are ASR1K models like the 7201 and 7301, i.e. which can be useful without adding components; or some like the 7204, 7206, 7304, where it's a box that needs to be populated with multiple cards to do anything useful.

Just noting you have a 7200 with a -G2, on which you're maxing the CPU, doesn't really allow us to suggest what ASR models, and their components, might be what you need.  However, you might start your review with the ASR 1002-X.

BTW, 300 MB (byte?) of SIP traffic, certainly could max out a -G2.  So might even 300 Mbps.  There's more that impacts 7200 performance than just CEF.  For example, any ACLs will increase load, and I recall for more than 3 ACEs within an ACL, performance is improved if you've activate TurboACLs (i.e. the access-list complied option).  Other configured service features take a toll on performance too.

Regarding pricing, well newer network devices tend to be faster and/or cost less.  Moore's Law applies to them too.

[dialtelusa]

I understand about ACL increasing load but we do not use the ACL of the router. We have a 1 GIG connection coming into the router and we do all our magic on the servers and literally have very little setup on the router. This is why I am only mentioning CEF Switching being on...

In the past I had an issue where it was OFF and causing me to use more processing power. Back at that time I had a Cisco 2801 and could not run over 50 lines of traffic. I compared the Fast CEF Switching numbers of the Cisco2801 to the Cisco7200VFX and had users on this forum telling me I could handle 20k paths on the 7200VFX using the NPE-G2. I felt it was going to be more like 4000 paths and after getting the 7200VFX with NPE-G2 I found that to be correct.

So now when searching for a suitable replacement I noticed the ASR1000-ESP5 is 8.8 million Packets Fast CEF compared to my 2 million packets on the NPE-G2. My logical conclusion is that it will handle about 15k channels  on the safe side... I know the math would come out to 17K and change but just figuring 15k...

Anyhow, that stat tends to work well for my planning. Now what really confuses me now is that I then found there is a ESP20 that can do 25 million packets. The price is almost the same... So I am scratching my head thinking about why I purchased a NPE-G2 for about 5k when I could have just gotten a ESP20 for the same price and had 12 times more capacity handling roughly 50k channels..

Did I just make a stupid mistake buying that NPE-G2 or am I completely overlooking something here? At this point my thought was to find out what router model is needed to slide in one of them ESP20 cards. Any idea on resources from Cisco and where to find them when it comes to the router shells and what equipment is compatible to go in them?

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Disclaimer

The   Author of this posting offers the information contained within this   posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that   there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose.   Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not   be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of  this  posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In   no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including,   without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising  out  of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if  Author  has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

BTW, although the -G2 is rated at 2 Mpps, it uses a different processor from other NPEs, and from other postings, it's appears the -G2 might not offer twice the performance of the -G1.

The ASRs have been out for a couple of years, I believe, so it's unfortunate you didn't know about their improved price performance vs. the 7200s.  (There also a relatively new 4451-X, which has the performance of a -G1 or -G2 (via license).

If your routing needs are simple, you might also look at L3 switches.  They can offer much higher performance for less.

With time, you can figure out how different ASR components go together (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9343/products_data_sheets_list.html).  I think the ASR 1004 will accept a ESP10 or ESP 20.  One reason I mentioned the ASR 1002-X it offers four performance levels based on license.

PS:

If you want to increase the performance of your existing platform, that might be accomplished with the NSE-1 (if you can find one).