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Why Cisco implements so much switching capacity in their switches?

romain-dubois
Level 1
Level 1

Hello,

    It is just of the curiosity but here is a question which have no answer for me.

Why Cisco implements so much switching capacity in their switches?

For example take the WS-C2960-24TT-L :

24 ports 10/100 Base-TX

2 combo ports 100/1000 Base-T or Base-X

Backplane Capacity:16 Gbps

Forwarding Performance : 6.5 Mpps

Obviously,16 Gbps of permutation performance is too much for the 8,8 Gbits (24*200+2*2000) needed by ports so why they put so many bandwidth?

Thanks for your help and sorry for my bad english skills.

Romain

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

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

As also described by Giuseppe, many of the smaller switches have a one-size fabric bandwidth and forwarding performance; just number of ports wired to it varies per model.  Cisco normally documents the capacity of the fabric regardless of the number of ports.  Often there might be excess fabric bandwidth that cannot be used on a particular model (or not enough for other models).  Cisco also normally documents the PPS, though, at the highest capacity the device can use given its ports, if aggregate performance requirement is less than hardware switching capacity, or total forwarding capacity if the total aggregation of ports can exceed physical switching capacity.

PS:

Requirements for worst-case wire-speed/line-rate Ethernet are: fabric bandwidth = 2 times all port bandwidths (stated non-duplex) and 1.488 Mpps per 1 Gbps of all port bandwidths (stated non-duplex).

View solution in original post

3 Replies 3

Giuseppe Larosa
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hello Romain,

the backplane HW may be the same of the 48 ports model.

Having a good switching capacity is not a bad thing at all.

Hope to help

Giuseppe

Reza Sharifi
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hi,

What you calculated is for a 24 port switch.  If you calculate the same for a 48 port switch, you come closer to 16Gig.

Usually, the Backplane capacity is built for max.

HTH

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

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

As also described by Giuseppe, many of the smaller switches have a one-size fabric bandwidth and forwarding performance; just number of ports wired to it varies per model.  Cisco normally documents the capacity of the fabric regardless of the number of ports.  Often there might be excess fabric bandwidth that cannot be used on a particular model (or not enough for other models).  Cisco also normally documents the PPS, though, at the highest capacity the device can use given its ports, if aggregate performance requirement is less than hardware switching capacity, or total forwarding capacity if the total aggregation of ports can exceed physical switching capacity.

PS:

Requirements for worst-case wire-speed/line-rate Ethernet are: fabric bandwidth = 2 times all port bandwidths (stated non-duplex) and 1.488 Mpps per 1 Gbps of all port bandwidths (stated non-duplex).

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