upgrade of 7204VXR with NPE-G1

[aoshea]

Dear support,

I am after some advice on the upgrade of two of our 7204VXR routers. These are our perimeter BGP / OSPF routers.

They are both running c7200-p-mz.123-9.bin

Currently we have 2 x 7204VXR’s each with;

NPE400 (256 MB RAM)

I/O controller (think C7200-I/O-GE+E)

2 x 1 port Fast Ethernet card (PA-1TX is this compatible with the NPE-G1)

1 x 8 port Ethernet card

We are currently looking at implementing gigabit connectivity both externally and internally and looking to upgrade the NPE from the NPE400 to the new NPE-G1.

First question;

Is there any benefit in keeping the I/O as we are currently using the GE and FE ports, or is the performance affected?

Second question;

Any gotcha’s should be aware about the upgrade … like ports being renumbered or additional contention on the ports?

Third question;

Any additional advice that may be relevant.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Regards, Adrian.

[pkhatri]

Quoting from CCO:

"Because the NPE-G1 has a console port and an auxiliary port, and handles the other functionality of the I/O controller, the need for an I/O controller is eliminated. However, an I/O controller can still be used. If an I/O controller is detected in the I/O controller slot, I/O controller functionality defaults to the I/O controller (with the exception of Non-volatile Random Access Memory [NVRAM] and boot flash). The console and auxiliary ports of the NPE-G1 are then disabled."

Speaking from my experience with this and in answer to your questions:

1. The benefit is that you get extra ports :-)

2. While I have not used a C7200-I/O-GE+E, I would imagine that the GE port appears as Gig0/0. The GigE ports on the NPE-G1 are numbered starting at Gig0/1.. Therefore, no re-numbering should occur.

Gotchas - just be mindful of which AUX/Console ports will be active (as mentioned above).

Hope that helps - pls rate the post if it does.

Regards,

Paresh.

[aoshea]

Many thanks for your assistance.

Regards, Adrian