Cisco Systems commissioned The Tolly Group to benchmark the packet throughput of its new Versatile Interface Processor Model 50 (VIP2-50) for the Cisco 7500 series routers when performing IP routing. For these tests, the VIP2-50 was configured with both OC-3 (155Mbit/s) Packet over SONET Interface Processors (POSIP) and Fast Ethernet Interfaces. (Note: POSIP is a point-to-point topology allowing IP packets to be transported directly over SONET without using ATM.)

A Cisco 7513 was outfitted with VIP2-50 inter- face modules, configured for VIP Distributed Switching and ran version 11.1(13.3)CA of the Internetworking Operating System (IOS) software. This test is a follow on to previous testing involving Cisco’s VIP2-40 modules (see document 7295). Testing was performed dur- ing August of 1997.

The test results show that the uni-directional throughput of a single VIP2-50 reached more than 157,000 pps using OC-3 POSIP and over 133,000 pps using Fast Ethernet. The same tests also show that the aggregate throughput of the Cisco 7513 reached more than 1,160,000 pps using OC-3 POSIP and 1,066,803 pps using Fast Ethernet to route streams of 64-byte IP packets. The aggregate performance tests benchmarked full duplex performance, that is, interfaces simultaneously handled inbound packets while transmitting outbound packets.