This section provides Cisco CSP 5000 sizing guidelines for deploying the Avi Load Balancer.
Cisco CSP 5000 is an NFV platform based on Intel x86 and the KVM hypervisor. The Controller and Service Engines can be deployed on Cisco CSP 5000.
Deploying Avi Load BalancerService Engines on Cisco CSP 5000
Avi Load Balancer Service Engines (SEs) are deployed as virtual machines (VMs) on Cisco CSP. The performance of the SEs depends on the number of vCPUs per SE VM (for throughput and SSL TPS) and memory (for concurrent connections). For optimal performance, SE VMs must be deployed on Cisco CSP with SRIOV enabled.
The following table outlines the core allocation for CSP:
CSP Model |
Total cores available |
Cores reserved for OS |
Available cores |
|---|---|---|---|
CSP 5216 |
16 |
2 |
14 |
CSP 5228 |
28 |
4 |
24 |
CSP 5436 |
36 |
4 |
32 |
CSP 5444 |
44 |
4 |
40 |
CSP 5436 |
56 |
4 |
52 |
Avi Load Balancer SE performance on Cisco CSP 5000
The following table outlines the SE performance on Cisco CSP, Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6152 CPU @ 2.10GHz, with hyper-threading disabled, and a 10-Gbps NIC with SRIOV enabled.
L4 Performance |
L7 Performance |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
SE VM Size |
CPS |
Throughput |
RPS |
Throughput |
2 vcpu, 4 gig (no dedicated dispatcher) |
60000 |
7 Gbps |
100000 |
7 Gbps |
4 vcpu, 4 gig (dedicated dispatcher) |
125000 |
9 Gbps |
175000 |
8.5 Gbps |
8 vcpu, 8 gig (dedicated dispatcher) |
150000 |
9 Gbps |
350000 |
9 Gbps |
L7 SSL Performance (ECC) |
L7 SSL Performance (RSA) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
SE VM Size |
CPS |
Throughput |
RPS |
Throughput |
2 vcpu, 4 gig (no dedicated dispatcher) |
4000 |
3 Gbps |
1500 |
3 Gbps |
4 vcpu, 4 gig (dedicated dispatcher) |
9000 |
5 Gbps |
3200 |
5 Gbps |
8 vcpu, 8 gig (dedicated dispatcher) |
18000 |
9 Gbps |
7000 |
9 Gbps |
In general, the SSL/TLS performance (both throughput and TPS) scales linearly with the number of vCPUs. For instance, a 4-vCPU SE can provide performance twice the capacity as listed in the table above.
Dedicated dispatcher CPU – Selecting this option dedicates the core that handles packet receive/transmit from/to the data network to just the dispatching function. This option is most applicable for an SE that has three or more vCPUs.
Recommended Cisco CSP 5000 Specifications
The following are the recommended Cisco CSP 5000 specification for various deployment scenarios:
Scale |
CSP Model |
Memory |
Storage |
NICs |
Maximum Avi Load Balancer SE performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Extra small |
CSP5216 |
256 GB |
3 TB SSD |
1x 40G NICs |
20 Gbps SSL 25K SSL TPS |
Small |
CSP5228 |
256 GB |
3 TB SSD |
1x 40G NICs |
30 Gbps SSL 50K SSL TPS |
Medium |
CSP5436 |
256 GB |
3 TB SSD |
2x 40G NICs |
40 Gbps SSL 70K SSL TPS |
Large |
CSP5444 |
512 GB |
6 TB SSD |
2x 40G NICs |
50 Gbps SSL 90K SSL TPS |
Extra Large |
CSP5456 |
512 GB |
6 TB SSD |
2x 40G NICs |
65 Gbps SSL 115K SSL TPS |
Creating Logical interfaces on Service Engine
The following table shows the logical interfaces that can be created on an SE:
Logical Interface |
Limit |
|---|---|
Maximum number of vNICs attached to Avi Load Balancer's SE VNF |
23 (out of which vNIC0 would be used for Avi Load Balancer SE management) |
Maximum number of VLANs on Avi Load Balancer SE |
200 |
Maximum number of VLANs per SRIOV passthrough interface |
64 |
