The router isn't doing much,

Athiqur Rahman · ‎11-03-2014

I have cisco 7206vxr router, which over the last few months, the average load has been going up from around 30%-40% to 50%-60%.

The router isn't doing much, just multi-homed BGP with default routes only. and some ACL's.

I am thinking whether i should upgrade the router a new npe-g2 card or just replace the router with a more powerful model.

Below are details of the router

Cisco IOS Software, 7200 Software (C7200-ADVENTERPRISEK9-M), Version 12.4(24)T2, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2009 by Cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Mon 19-Oct-09 22:53 by prod_rel_team

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 12.3(4r)T1, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
BOOTLDR: Cisco IOS Software, 7200 Software (C7200-KBOOT-M), Version 12.4(4)XD9, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)


Cisco 7206VXR (NPE-G1) processor (revision A) with 491520K/32768K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID 21297172
SB-1 CPU at 700MHz, Implementation 1025, Rev 0.2, 512KB L2 Cache
6 slot VXR midplane, Version 2.0

Last reset from power-on

PCI bus mb1 (Slots 1, 3 and 5) has a capacity of 600 bandwidth points.
Current configuration on bus mb1 has a total of 0 bandwidth points.
This configuration is within the PCI bus capacity and is supported.

PCI bus mb2 (Slots 2, 4 and 6) has a capacity of 600 bandwidth points.
Current configuration on bus mb2 has a total of 0 bandwidth points.
This configuration is within the PCI bus capacity and is supported.

Please refer to the following document "Cisco 7200 Series Port Adaptor
Hardware Configuration Guidelines" on Cisco.com <http://www.cisco.com>
for c7200 bandwidth points oversubscription and usage guidelines.

2 FastEthernet interfaces
3 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
509K bytes of NVRAM.

62976K bytes of ATA PCMCIA card at slot 0 (Sector size 512 bytes).
62976K bytes of ATA PCMCIA card at slot 2 (Sector size 512 bytes).
16384K bytes of Flash internal SIMM (Sector size 256K).
Configuration register is 0x2102

7206vxr.rb#show processes cpu history

7206vxr.rb   11:17:50 AM Monday Nov 3 2014 GMT

    555555555555555555555555555555555555566666555555555555555555
    888888888888777778888888888888888888811111888888888877777999
100
 90
 80
 70
 60 ************************************************************
 50 ************************************************************
 40 ************************************************************
 30 ************************************************************
 20 ************************************************************
 10 ************************************************************
   0....5....1....1....2....2....3....3....4....4....5....5....6
             0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0
               CPU% per second (last 60 seconds)

    666555555555565555655555555554545555555555555555555555555555
    020967686864709422236644003158191332343231112238623433431432
100
 90
 80
 70
 60 ##########* ***   * **      *                  **
 50 ############################################################
 40 ############################################################
 30 ############################################################
 20 ############################################################
 10 ############################################################
   0....5....1....1....2....2....3....3....4....4....5....5....6
             0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0
               CPU% per minute (last 60 minutes)
              * = maximum CPU%   # = average CPU%

    655221132223222122232232222111241112132221222223332111231222222222445435
    270109990320556838675903461956335244815224367784156781265148010243377045
100
 90
 80
 70
 60 **                                                                  *  *
 50 #**                                                                **  *
 40 ##*    *           *           *                 *     *          **** *
 30 ##*    *   ****  ******  *     *     **    ********    *   *      *#####
 20 ###**********##***##*#####*******  ****** *########** ************######
 10 ########################################################################
   0....5....1....1....2....2....3....3....4....4....5....5....6....6....7..
             0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0
                   CPU% per hour (last 72 hours)
                  * = maximum CPU%   # = average CPU%

Below is a graph of the load and also the graph of bandwidth usage

Thanks,

Joseph W. Doherty · ‎11-03-2014

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

I think all of the 7200 series is end-of-life. That might be considered whether to just upgrade your 7200's "engine".

The -G2 is rated at twice the capacity of your -G1, although personal experience, and other posts on these forums would cause wonder whether that's really the case (it does, though, have much increased capacity).

You might also consider the NSE-1 for the maximum possible forwarding performance for your 7200.

Koh Chin Han · ‎11-03-2014

The router isn't doing much, just multi-homed BGP with default routes only. and some ACL's.

As the objective is not objective inclined, it would be a better choice to keep it, else if you have any other objectives you would like to meet.

adawa · ‎11-05-2014

Hello.

Joseph is correct, most Cisco 7200 are already End of Life and we encourage our customers looking at the ASR 1000 series as the direct replacement. As this is already End of Life there is an option to trade it in order for you to migrate easily.

Let me know if you have additional concerns/support or e-mail (adawa@cisco.com) me directly. Kind regards.

Keith Christensen · ‎12-15-2014

You do not need to replace your router,

I had the same problem when using the three gigabit interfaces on my 7206 with the npe-g1 running full routes with BGP4, I got the same high CPU issues, in fact it was peaking out at 100%

What I discovered is that when you use the 3 GigE interfaces on the Npe-G1 it blows out the CPU with BGP4.

But if you use one of the GigE on the NPE-G1 to your network and then use Separate Fast Ethernet cards to your internet providers the CPU usage drops below 10%.

I am also going to try this with the Gigibit Cards for the 7200 series.

I think that by using the separate cards it off loads a lot of processing on the NPE-G1 so it has to only worry about the Gige interface and BGP4

Keith

bsiapco · ‎01-22-2015

Athiqur Rahman. Has this concern been addressed? If you need more assistance you please email me at (bsiapco@cisco.com).

Thanks!

Barry

upgrade or replace 7206vxr