We are rebuilding our infrastructure at work and I’m looking for advice on what gear to choose for my usecase.
We need our router to support VLAN WAN tagging and IPoE sessions. WAN will initially be connected through an internet port with an external modem, but I would like the router to be able to upgrade to a XGSPON ONU SFP+ when our ISP provides it.
The internal network needs to link a storage server with two other servers at high speeds (multiple Gbps of bandwidth needed for very long periods) through SFP+ DACs. One of the servers will be publicly available on the internet. The 3 servers should also be reachable from any other devices on the internal network through gigabit ethernet ports. Around 20 1Gigabit ethernet ports should be available for desktops and wireless APs.
My first solution was to use a CCR2004-1G-12S+2XS router and CRS326-24G-2S+RM switch. All 3 servers and the switch would be connected to the router through SFP+ 10G DACs and all other devices (desktops computers, APs) would be connected to the switch. However, I am not sure about the router’s performance.
I don’t have much knowledge on networking so I would really appreciate some advice. Thanks a lot!
Published test results and some common sense applied say that CCR should br able to route at around 5Gbps (give or take, depends on actual config).
Beware that bridging ("switching") between ports spanning same L2 broadcast domain (for most purposes that's same IP subnet) will be done by CPU as well which limits bridging capacity to aggregate throughput around 27Gbps at high CPU load.
So basically any traffic between servers and clients (conected via switch) will hit on router's CPU reducing its simultaneous routing performance.
@mkx
What would be a valid alternative (for roughly the same budget)?
OP:
CCR2004-1G-12S+2XS $595
CRS326-24G-2S+RM $209
Total $804
Would this be noticeably better/faster?:
CCR2004-16G-2S+ $465 <- router
CRS309-1G-8S+ $269 <- switch for servers
CRS326-24G-2S+RM $209 <- switch for clients
Total $943
Or would this be enough?:
CCR2004-16G-2S+ $465 <- router
CRS305-1G-4S+IN $149 <- switch for servers
CRS326-24G-2S+RM $209 <- switch for clients
Total $823
The difference between CCR2004-1G-12S+2XS and CCR2004-16G-2S+ is mainly in port configuration. CPU is the same hence routing capacity (5Gbps give or take) is the same. If your servers have 10Gbps interfaces, then using either CRS305 or CRS309 will be fine. The difference between those two is, again, the port count. How many 10Gbps ports you need (4 or 8) depends on how you plan to connect 10Gbps gadgets (servers and switch).
Personally I'm a fan of "star" topology with some central switch. Which means I'd set a CRS as main switch and then use 10Gbps connections to connect both router (which would be a "router on a stick") and distribution switch (the CRS326). And in this case you need at least 5 10Gbps ports on main switch (3 servers, router, distribution switch), which means CRS309.
The nice thing about both CRS305 and CRS309 is that they can be used as (wirespeed) routers ... IF they only route (e.g. between VLANs) without performing any fancy firewalling (OK, CRS305 can do that as well if configured carefully and properly). If you are interested, have a look at L3 hardware offloading docs.
[edit] There are a few CCR2xxx routers which come equipped with switch chip and can utilize L3 HW offload which you could use instead of router/core switch combo, e.g. CCR2116-12G-4S+ (but comes with too few SFP+ ports for your needs / expansion plans) or CCR2216-1G-12XS-2XQ (but it's way pricier than the gear you listed so far).
Yep, and you have still a few ports available for the future (4th server?) and you can use one SFP/one empty slots, even if they will be optical (please read as much less heat than copper SFP) there will be much better cooling of the modules.
