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Router throughtput and bandwidth capability of routers

azniazi
Level 1
Level 1

1.    Kindly explain what is through put of a router?

2.    In my organization Cisco 2951 K9 router is installed and and have an inter link of 320 MB but NMS graph never touches beyound 250 except one odd time. Two snapshots of graphs are attached as reference please.  what is the problem? Can this router handle this link or otherwise?

4 Replies 4

Mark Malone
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

Its dependent on whats enabled on the router , the more services enabled the less it will push I throughput

see these 2 docs for stats on what you should expect

https://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/765/tools/quickreference/routerperformance.pdf

http://www.anticisco.ru/pubs/ISR_G2_Perfomance.pdf

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame
Cisco recommends a 2951 for up to 75 Mbps of WAN bandwidth. So, it's very possible it's not a suitable router for your 320 MB inter link.

HairulAhmad5459
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Azniazi, 

 

 I was also searching on the bandwidth throughput on Cisco 2951 when i came upon seeing your entry on this subject. 

 

Seeing your bandwidth utilization that reaches beyond 75Mbps and even touches 300Mbps mark indicates that the Cisco documentation on the 75Mbps recommendation is based on fully loaded services. And I'm curious to know what's running on that router that enables it go to beyond 75Mbps. ( routing protocols, BGP, ISIS, NAT, Firewall ,  how many number of ACL lines,  MPLS configured, etc) 

 

 You mentioned that there's a 320Mbps interlink in between this router and maybe another similiar router and wonders why the utilization barely hits 320Mbps mark except on one occasion. when it comes to link provisioned by the local loop provider or telco service provider, we often gets the notion if we subscribe bandwidth , let say 320 Mbps , we should get  320 Mbps, which is  partially true, however in order to get that 320Mbps, we need to have the traffic demand or generate traffic  that goes up to 320Mbps. 

 

Outside production phase, during  provision stage or in a maintenance window, you could request from the local loop provider to have a throughput test conducted between this two sites but have it conducted from the Router's Gigabit LAN interface instead. The Provider may not be accountable for the router performance, but this is to see your router performance and with the interlink provisioned. 

 

Hope this gives you an idea for the router throughput performance. 

If you look at Mark's 2nd reference, you'll see the 2951 can process over 5 Gbps of traffic. That though is best case. The 75 Mbps (duplex) recommendation allows for IMIX traffic with many services while keeping the CPU load below 100% (explained in detail, same document).
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