CSR-1000V Hardware Requirements

theodoxa

Does anyone know what the hardware requirements are for the CSR-1000V. Only thing I was able to find was somewhere that stated 16 GB of RAM per 10 Routers and a certain amount of disk space. I haven't been able to find any information about what processor would be needed.

Intel Only ?
Dual Core (i3) or Quad Core (i5 or i7) ?
Anything Else ?

Thanks

joelsfood

VM:
4 vCPU
4GB RAM
8GB Disk

Host:
Nehalem or later, 1.9GHz or faster
16GB RAM
100GB disk

That's the requirements for 3.8/3.9

Cisco CSR 1000V Series Cloud Services Router Release Notes - Cisco

bermovick

That can't be right. The OVA file only allocates 2.5G memory and 8G drive space per VM. I've managed to bring the memory allocation down to 2G per VM, but you get low memory warnings.


UPDATE:
I just walked through an install of the OVA file and one of the steps lets you pick the configuration: "small, medium, large, large+DRAM upgrade", which has different requirements. Small only uses 1 vcpu and 2.5G.

UPDATE2:
In realistic terms, the server I have at work has 16G and once everything stabilizes, my vSphere client shows about 10G used with 10 CSRs running.

theodoxa

joelsfood wrote: »

4 vCPU

Quad Core?

Nehalem or later, 1.9GHz or faster

Had to Google that one since I'm not familiar with Intel code names. Wikipedia says Core i7 was the first to use it, but lists three Core i5s. The architecture listed as "Successor" in Wikipedia even list some Core i3s. The "Successor" to that one lists a bunch of "Pentiums" and "Celerons". Intel's Processor numbering is so messed up.

joelsfood

4vcpus on the virtual machine, theodoxa.

First part of answer referred to the virtual hardware requirements on the virtual machine, second part referred to physical hardware for the host machine.

tomtom1

bermovick wrote: »

UPDATE2:
In realistic terms, the server I have at work has 16G and once everything stabilizes, my vSphere client shows about 10G used with 10 CSRs running.

That's just vSphere efficiency, transparant page sharing and other optimizing techniques at work.

gorebrush

FYI I have a Quad Core i5, 32GB RAM, once I get above 16 CSR's I get some really, really funny things going on.

It'll run 10 happily for the purpose of INE workbooks though.

spiderjericho

^^^Whats the largest number you can deploy and lab/test with your rig?

gorebrush

Well, 16... after that I get crashes and other weird stuff. I do run one or two other VM's but I need them running all the time. I could maybe get to 18 on that.

Personally though I've been using IOU and you can create silly numbers of routers with 16GB assigned to it.

rinoel

Running an HP Z800 Intel Xeon i7, with 24Gig of Ram, and 100Gig of disk space.

I'm happy with this set-up, at least all INE topology is running smoothly

Scales

rinoel wrote: »

Running an HP Z800 Intel Xeon i7, with 24Gig of Ram, and 100Gig of disk space.

I'm happy with this set-up, at least all INE topology is running smoothly

Do you use a breakout switch? If you do, did you need to buy a special type of NIC for tagging frames?

Dan.

I run 20x CSR1000V's on a Dell 1950 iii 2x Quad Xeon 5450 3GHz with 32GB of Ram. This server was off ebay early last year and cost £400. I run a whole host of VM's on that box. It's a work in progress. I've just got a ASA1000V to work as well. With that in mind i wanted to limit the RAM used per CSR instance. Each CSR has 2.5GB assigned and i followed the tip on this site below:

CCIE R&S v5 Home Lab « Andrew Roderos

Making the Mem.AllocGuestLargePage change has enable me to run 20x CSR's in ~16GB of Ram. The process does take a bit of time to work. ESXi basically reduces memory duplication which you will have with 20x almost identical instances of a CSR. It takes time to scan though memory looking for duplicates. There is a setting to speed this up at the expense of some CPU cycles. As i said it's a work in progress. I turn the server off each day to save power. Starting it up at 5x CSR's at a time and allowing ESXi to check for duplicate pages probably takes 20 mins for it to settle at 16GB for 20x. Obviously if you leave it running all the time once it have stabilised it shouldn't vary too much depending on what labs you are doing and how much you thrash the routers.