ASR9000 CGN on Tomahawk Line Cards

[DanilZhig]

Hello,

I see there are some CGN capabilities on Tomahawk generation Line Cards. CGN Licenses for 4-Port and 8-Port are orderable.

There are also some hits that some other nat-related features are supported on some other Tomahawk line cards, e.g. MAP-T on MOD200 and MOD400 (although it is just stateless translation)

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/asr9000/software/asr9k_r5-3/cg-nat/configuration/guide/b_cgnat_cg53xasr9k/b_cgnat_cg53xasr9k_chapter_0100.html

But configuration guides always refer to VSM module when it comes to CGN configuration. That's why I am wondering if inline CGN on line cards is completely there, or is just limited and experimental?

Best regards,

Danil 

[Nicolas Fevrier]

Hi Danil,

there is no stateful translation without VSM in ASR9000.

So, NAT will require a VSM, always. Regardless the scale, performance, etc. The line card itself has no mechanism to track states of translation.

MAP-T in the other end, as you mentioned, is stateless and can be operated on a TH-based line card without VSM, but that's the only exception in the CGN world. All other features (NAT, DS-Lite, 6rd, etc), will need a VSM.

Kind regards,

N.

[DanilZhig]

Hi Nicolas,

I see there are CGN licenses for line cards:

A9K-800GCGN-LIC=

A9K-400GCGN-LIC=

Do they only enable MAP-T feature on line cards?

Here is a quote from configuration guide:

MAP-T is supported only on Cisco ASR 9000 Series 400G and 200G Modular Line Cards and Cisco ASR 9000 Series 4-Port and 8-Port 100 Gigabit Ethernet Line Cards.

So there should also be similar licenses for MOD200 and MOD400 Cards?

Best regards,

Danil

[Nicolas Fevrier]

Hi Danil,

I confirm that the licenses 400G/800G should only be necessary for MAP-T.

I'll check with the product management team what they do for MOD cards.

Thanks,

N.

[DanilZhig]

Hi Nicolas,

Have you heard from product management team? Thanks again for checking this.

Best regards,

Danil

[Nicolas Fevrier · Accepted solution]

Hi Danil,

just got the feedback today.

The product management created the license for 200G CGN (MAP) this week. It should be usable by your account team in the ordering tool: A9K-200G-CGN-LIC.

So basically, you will have this license fro MOD200 and the A9K-400G-CGN-LIC for the MOD200.

Kind regards,

N.

[DanilZhig]

Impressive. Thanks for your feedback.