Enterprise Edge Router Upgrade Guide

RA-070112-02 Enterprise Edge Router Upgrade Guide July 2012

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Enterprise Edge Router
Upgrade Guide
Sample Report

Report RA-070112-02
July 2012

1" Copyright © 2012 Router Analysis


Don’t Just Test. Analyze.
"

En terprise Edge Upgrading your WAN to 10G:
Router Upgrade Guide A Guide to Midrange Enterprise
(Sa mple Report)
! Routers.
REP OR T R A-0 70 11 2 -0 2
7200VXR to ASR1000

The Cisco 7200VXR Series routers have long been
Devices covered in this report:
the standard for providing the necessary link between
enterprises and the Internet.
Cisco:
7200VXR NPE-G2
As an Enterprise Edge Router, the 7200VXR
ASR1004 RP2 / ESP40
provides reliable software forwarding across interfaces up
ARR1006 RP2 / ESP40
to one Gigabit in size.
Juniper:
But what do you do when you need to upgrade your
MX80
WAN link to something larger such as 10 Gigabit? What
options do you have, and which option is the most cost
Huawei: " effective while still offering the flexibility to stay usable for
NE40E-X1/X2/X3
five plus years?
How we test:
In this report Router Analysis tests the Cisco
ASR1000 Series, specifically the ASR1004.
Utilizing state-of-the-art
testing technology from
With the latest RP2 processor and ESP40 Fabric,
vendors such as IXIA and MU
can the ASR1004 handle the needs of enterprises into the
Dynamics (now Spirent),
next decade?
Router Analysis has a world
class testing lab.
What about the competitors to the ASR1000 Series,
how do they compare?

2" Copyright © 2012 Router Analysis

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Results Summary
The Cisco ASR1004 performed within Cisco’s claimed specifications when
tested at the Router Analysis test lab.

Featureless IPv4 forwarding performed better than advertised: forwarding at
27 Million packets per second (Mpps) versus the claimed 23Mpps.

Featureless IPv6 forwarding was tested at 21Mpps.

Enabling features such as ACLs and uRPF dropped the routers forwarding
performance down to 23.4Mpps for IPv4 and 11.7Mpps for IPv6. Both numbers
are above the 10.4Mpps minimum forwarding rate of the system advertised by
Cisco.

QoS functioned as expected, protecting streams as configured and no head
of line blocking was observed.

30000000!

25000000!

20000000!

Claimed!
15000000!
Observed!
w!uRPF!
10000000!

5000000!

0!
IPv4!Base! IPv4!ACL! IPv6!Base! IPv6!ACL!

Figure 1 - Cisco ASR1004 IPv4 and IPv6 Forwarding

As a replacement for the 7200VXR, the ASR1004 performs well. Providing
the features, bandwidth and interfaces needed. !

3 Copyright © 2012 Router Analysis
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History of the Cisco 7200
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The Cisco 7200 Series routers have been at the Enterprise Edge for almost
two decades. Even though the first 7200 Series router came out in 1996. Cisco
has kept the 7200 Series routers up to date by releasing a new chassis (The
7200VXR in 2002) and continuing to release new Network Processing Engines
(NPEs).

The current NPE-G2 processor (released in 2006) for the 7200VXR Series
offers forwarding rates up to 2Mpps, 1.8 Gigabits backplane fabric bandwidth and
a maximum of one million routes in the forwarding table. The 7200VXR Series with
the NEP-G2 is acceptable for links with up to 500Mbps of traffic.

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Figure 2 - Cisco 7204VXR Router

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Figure 3 - Cisco 7200 NPE-G2

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7200 Replacement Option One – The Cisco ASR1000
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With the latest generation Route Processor 2 (RP2) and Embedded Services
Processor 40 (ESP40), Cisco claims, and we have verified, forwarding rates of
23Mpps (10x the 7200 platform). The latest hardware also supports up to four
million IPv4 prefixes, four times that of the 7200.

When replacing a 7204, we suggest using the ASR1004. If you have a
7206, or need hardware redundancy, you will have to go with the ASR1006.

The ASR1006 is a highly flexible router with 3 SIP carrier slots, space for up
to 12 SPAs and redundant RPs and ESPs.

For this report we focused on the ASR1004’s performance and features.

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Figure 4 - Cisco ASR1004

7200 Replacement Option Two: Huawei NE40E-X1 & X2
The Huawei NE40E-X1 and X2 are the lower end of the NE40E series
routers from Huawei. They are focused on Ethernet Metro, but also suitable for the
Enterprise Edge. The NE40E-X1 offers up to 20G of mix-and-match interfaces
while the X2 offers up to 40G. If you are looking for redundancy, you will need to
go with the X2.

Another option from Huawei is the NE40E-X3, which is a more direct
competitor to the ASR1004/ASR1006. The NE40E-X3 offers compatibility with the
Linecard Processing Units (LPUs) used in the higher end NE40E-X8 and X16. The

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NE40E-X8 offers line-rate forwarding of 40 byte packets with minimal features
enabled on the system.

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Figure 5 - Huawei NE40E-X1/X2

Juniper MX40/80
The Juniper MX40/80 is the smallest router of the group, being only 2RU,
but offers big performance: up to 55Mpps of forwarding and 40/80Gbps of fabric
bandwidth depending on which model you purchase.

The MX80 router is a single-board router with a built-in Routing Engine and
one Packet Forwarding Engine (PFE), which can have up to two Modular Interface
Cards (MICs). The PFE has two Flexible PIC Concentrators (FPC 0 and FPC1),
which use the same PFE for both ingress and egress forwarding.

The main limitation of the MX40/80 is the lack of hardware redundancy. To
have redundancy you need at least two routers which increases cost.

Figure 6 - Juniper MX80 3D

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Test Lab Setup
The Router Analysis test lab utilizes the latest in IXIA testing hardware. The
tests in this report were performed using an IXIA testing chassis with 22 Gigabit
Ethernet ports, two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports along with IXIAs IxNetwork, IxLoad
and IxAutomate software.

The ASR1004 was configured with one RP2, one ESP40 and two SIP40
carrier cards. Each carrier card had three five port Gigabit Ethernet v2 SPAs and
one Single Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet v2 SPA.

Figure 7 – Cisco ASR1004

Tests Carried Out
• IP forwarding rate
o Minimum Packet Size (64 bytes)
! With ACLs (permit any any)
! With uRPF
! With QoS
! With Netflow
o Packet IMIX
o 1500 Byte Packets (Fabric Throughput)
• MPLS forwarding rate
o Minimum Packet Size
o Packet IMIX
o Maximum Packet Size
• Oversubscription
o One to Many (HOLB Test)
o Many to One
o QoS

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Sample Testing Results
IPv4 and IPv6 Forwarding Results

30000000!

25000000!

20000000!

Claimed!
15000000!
Observed!
w!uRPF!
10000000!

5000000!

0!
IPv4!Base! IPv4!ACL! IPv6!Base! IPv6!ACL!

Figure 8 - Cisco ASR1004 IPv4 and IPv6 Forwarding

The main takeaway from the results is that the ASR1004 performed above
the quoted specifications for featureless IPv4 based forwarding. IPv4 + uRPF also
came in above the stated 23Mpps specification. IPv4 forwarding with ACLs was
21.3Mpps (about the same as IPv6 base which is 21Mpps).

While testing the ASR1004, the worst performance appeared while
executing the “IPv6 forwarding with ACLs and uRPF” test case. The ASR1004 did
just 11.75Mpps.

Both the IMIX and Fabric Bandwidth tests were above the minimum
threshold and able to be done at full fabric bandwidth (40G). The Fabric numbers
are uni-directional, if traffic is counted both directions we exceeded 80G across the
system.

We did not observe any head of line blocking or QoS issues. QoS protected
the streams even when the system was overload (where available forwarding rate
was being exceeded).

For more detailed results contact the Router Analysis team at
info@routeranalysis.com

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Appendix A – Sample Test Cases
The following two test cases represent a sample from the set of 40 performed in
the Router Analysis lab.

Test Case One – IP Forwarding

Synopsis:

When testing systems which have a set PPS or Fabric Bandwidth which is lower
then the combined interfaces available; it is necessary to validate the best-case
base forwarding rate. Once the rate has been determined, it is possible to judge
other test cases against the best-case forwarding rate.

Goal of Test:

To confirm best-case IPv4 or IPv6 forwarding rate using the minimum and
maximum packet size accepted by the system.

Procedure:

Configure the minimum number of links between the tester and the system under
test (SUT) to provide either a.) More than the maximum PPS or b.) More than the
maximum fabric bandwidth as claimed by the vendor.

For example:

The ASR1004 ESP40 claims a maximum of 23Mpps or 40Gbps. To test 23Mpps,
you could use two 10GE interfaces running 64 byte packets at line rate (14.8Mpps
x 2).

To test the maximum fabric bandwidth you run large packets such as 1500 bytes
and would need at least 42G of interfaces such as four 10GE and two GE (due to
packet overhead which would be stripped before it reached the fabric).

Data to Collect:

Maximum PPS for IPv4, IPv6 and a 50/50 mix of IPv4 and IPv6
Maximum fabric bandwidth for IPv4, IPv6 and a 50/50 mix of IPv4 and IPv6

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Test Case Two – IP Forwarding with Features

Synopsis:

Once the best-case forwarding rate for IP has been determined, it is important to
start enabling features to see what impact they may have on the forwarding rate.

Goal of Test:

To determine which features if any impact the forwarding rate of the SUT.

Procedure:

ACLs:

Using your best-case setup from test one, apply a simple “allow all” access list to
one interface inbound. Once you have recorded the data, swap the access list to
outbound on the same interface.

Next apply the access list both in and out on the same interface.

The final steps are to apply the access list in and out on the other interfaces
observing if the impact is the same or greater.

When you have completed the testing you should have the access list applied to all
interfaces inbound and outbound.

(If no impact is seen even with all interfaces running ACLs, you may need to
configure a bigger ACL using multiple Access List Entries (ACEs) with random
source/destination addresses and ports blocked before an allow all statement.)

If ACLs have no impact on forwarding performance it is possible that the SUT does
all access list actions in hardware and no impact will be seen. Consult with your
vendor to discuss.

uRPF:

For uRPF follow the same concept as with ACLs: apply uRPF to one interface at a
time, log the results and then continue.

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Appendix B – Sample Test Result Tables
The following tables represent a sample of the data collected during testing in the
Router Analysis Lab.

IPv4 Forwarding Results Data

Test Claimed Test Results Pass/Fail
IPv4 PPS no ACL 23,000,000 26,600,000 Pass
IPv4 PPS with ACL 10,400,000 21,774,000 Pass
IPv4 Fabric BW 40G 40G Pass
IPv4 Fabric BW ACL 40G 40G Pass

IPv4 + uRPF Forwarding Results Data

Test Claimed Test Results Pass/Fail
IPv4 + uRPF 10,400,000 23,450,000 Pass
IPv4 ACL + uRPF 10,400,000 18,140,800 Pass
IPv4 Fabric + uRPF 40G 40G Pass
IPv4 Fabric ACL + uRPF 40G 40G Pass

IPv6 Forwarding Results Data

Test Claimed Test Result Pass/Fail
IPv6 PPS no ACL 10,400,000 21,000,000 Pass
IPv6 PPS with ACL 10,400,000 14,900,000 Pass
IPv6 Fabric BW 40G 40G Pass
IPv6 Fabric BW with ACL 40G 40G Pass

IPv6 + uRPF Forwarding Results Data

Test Claimed Test Result Pass/Fail
IPv6 + uRPF 10,400,000 17,500,000 Pass
IPv6 ACL + uRPF 10,400,000 14,900,000 Pass
IPv6 Fabric + uRPF 40G 40G Pass
IPv6 Fabric ACL + uRPF 40G 40G Pass

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About Router Analysis
With a world-class fully vendor independent testing lab, Router Analysis
provides unbiased information to its clients.

Router Analysis provides the following services:

Router and Switch Testing
Test Plan Creation
On-Site Testing Support
Router, Switch and Tester Training
Network Design Consultation, Verification and Installation
… And More.

Contact Router Analysis by phone at +1 888 SONN COM (766-6266) or by
email at info@routeranalysis.com for a quote, more information or any questions.

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Enterprise Edge Router Upgrade Guide

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