Tcam and cam tables

[carl_townshend]

Hi All

its been a long time since I looked at the basics :). Do switches use the cam table or tcam table for Mac learning ?

also, if we were to add say 300 access list control entries and apply to a switch port, would this cause any negative impact to performance ? I  guess not as it’s all done in hardware?

lastly, do switches have 2 tcam tables used for input and output direction or just one ?

cheers 

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Perhaps this, https://community.cisco.com/t5/networking-documents/cam-content-addressable-memory-vs-tcam-ternary-content/ta-p/3107938, will help answer you questions.

As to added 300 ACEs, answer depends on whether hardware capacity exceeded.  If not, generally no negative impact.  If yes, often a very big impact.