I have 2 4011 (acting as LAN router and WAN router) and they are connected to two CRS326-24G-2s++RM units.
As a router 4011 is very good and I have a 500/100 and at full load to internet I use about 5 % of the CPU and when running backup jobs internally I more or less push 1 Gbit on several ports at the same time and the link speed of 1 Gbit is the limiting factor, not the CPU of the unit. Then switching is also link speed so no issues there.
My CRS switches could not provide this speed as they are switches. A switch would solve the issues for you by adding more ports.
Thanks all.
Hijacking this thread. I’ve a rb4011 as well and would want to switch all ports to sfp to offload the cpu. How could I do this? Anyone who could help?
The block diagram shows that this is not possible:
Add a CRS310, CRS328-4C-20S, CRS317, or CRS326-24S+ to keep LAN traffic off the router. Per the diagram sindy posted, you will still end up loading the CPU with WAN traffic due to the SFP+ port on the RB4011 not being handled by the switch chip, but routing is a CPU function on the RB4011 anyway.
All of those switches can provide L3HW offloading as well, avoiding the need for LAN traffic to “hairpin” through the router in common scenarios.
Unless you’re getting up into CCR territory, you likely won’t notice any extra load on the router after this, as compared to straight routing. All traffic crossing it should be coming in the SFP+ and going out the WAN interface’s gigabit port, or vice versa.
Contrast the RB5009, which in this configuration can do hardware switching of the SFP+ to a 2.5G copper port, but you’ll still likely need CPU involvement for NAT, VPN, etc.
Thank you all for the advice - will do so.