RE: (PM) US West using PM4's (fwd)

James Courtier-Dutton (dutton@livingston-ent.co.uk)
Tue, 20 Apr 1999 15:07:29 +0100

Hello Brian
I think the PM4 will handle the load without too much problem.
The PM4 uses a distributed Processor system which spreads the load.
All the traffic is not pushed through a 486. (I can't find any 486s on any
of the PM4 cards.)
One of the CPUs on the Modem cards is a 586, not a 486.
But the DSP chips do a lot more than just modems. The modem only takes about
20% of the DSP power. The rest is being put towards PPP encap and forwarding
etc.
When traffic goes from the Modem cards to the 100Meg Ethernet port on the
manager card, it goes directly to the dual RISC processors on the Ethernet
Port(Slot10)(daughter card on the manager card). It does not go via the
Manager CPU(slot4). So if you can follow what I am saying here, hopefully
you will see that there are no bottle-necks on the PM4 product.
Cheers
James

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-portmaster-users@livingston.com
> [mailto:owner-portmaster-users@livingston.com]On Behalf Of Brian Horvitz
> Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 1999 02:38
> To: MegaZone
> Cc: PortMaster Users
> Subject: RE: (PM) US West using PM4's (fwd)
>
>
> > The AS5800 can handle 2 T3s, and Cisco reps told me it won't scale past
> > that. It is also much larger than the PM-4 so the rack density
> isn't really
> > better. The PM-4 can do 1 T3 today, the next phase is supposed to be
> > 3T3s. And the only limitation is the modems, you could do 2,
> maybe 3, T3s
> > *per slot* based on backplane capacity.
>
> I would be a bit worried about putting 3 T3s through the PM4. The
> backplane is there but, they had better beef up the processing power of
> the modem blades and the management unit. I've heard tell of the unit
> falling off like 20-30% on packet forwarding speed when it gets loaded.
> I've got 16 T1s in mine and haven't noticed any serious loss but, I could
> see another 12 T1s pushing it too far. That poor little 486 ain't gonna
> cut it. Of course this is second hand info. I don't have the facilities
> to truely do that kind of test myself.
>
> Brian
>
> -
> To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with
> 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message.
> Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>
>
>

-
To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with
'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message.
Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>