Port Assignments on Cisco 8100/8200, Cisco 8608, and Cisco 8800 Platforms

Introduction

The Cisco 8000 Series routers are built around network processors from the Cisco Silicon One family. To continue increasing performance, these network processors (NPUs) have an internal architecture that uses multiple hardware engines to process packets in parallel. The term we use for these internal engine groupings is “slices”. Note: don’t be confused with other platforms where an entire NPU is also called a “slice”. As semiconductor processes allow greater integration, we’ve seen systems like the Cisco 12000, where it took multiple large ASICs on a single linecard to implement the forwarding path. On the Cisco CRS-1, we moved from a few large ASICs to just a couple, to having multiple highly integrated NPUs on a single linecard. The ASR9k continued this integration with multiple NPUs on a card – here each NPU complex was referred to as a “slice”. On the Cisco 8000, each NPU has now integrated multiple forwarding engines onto a single chip along with the fabric interface as well. Better integration means fewer total chips in the forwarding path, with higher performance and lower power. The majority of users will never need to know or care exactly how the front panel ports are mapped to these individual NPUs or which forwarding engines are used for a given interface. That said, understanding the port assignments can be useful in analyzing traffic flows, facilitating troubleshooting, and performance analysis. Let’s review here how ports are allocated on each of the Cisco 8000 systems.

The following CLI command can be used on any Cisco 8000 system to display the assignments of physical ports to their corresponding NPU, slice, and IFG. (“IFG” stands for “interface group”, this is just another internal sub-block of the chip. There are two IFGs for each forwarding slice.

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:Cisco8201-32FH#sh controllers npu voq-usage interface all instance all loc 0/rp0/cpu0
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Node ID: 0/RP0/CPU0
Intf         Intf     NPU Slice IFG  Sys   VOQ   Flow   VOQ    Port
name         handle    #    #    #   Port  base  base   port   speed
             (hex)                                      type
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hu0/0/0/0    f000110   0   4    1     4    448      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/1    f000118   0   4    1     8    456      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/2    f000120   0   4    1    12    464      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/3    f000128   0   4    0    16    480      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/4    f000130   0   3    1    20    496      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/5    f000138   0   4    0    24    488      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/6    f000140   0   5    0    28    512      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/7    f000148   0   5    1    32    528      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/8    f000150   0   5    1    36    536      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/9    f000158   0   5    1    40    544      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/10   f000160   0   5    0    44    520      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/11   f000168   0   5    0    48    560      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/12   f000170   0   3    0    52    576      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/13   f000178   0   3    1    56    504      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/14   f000180   0   3    0    60    584      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/15   f000188   0   3    0    64    592      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/16   f000190   0   2    1    68    608      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/17   f000198   0   2    1    72    616      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/18   f0001a0   0   2    1    76    624      0 local   100G
Hu0/0/0/19   f0001a8   0   2    0    80    640      0 local   100G
~ snip ~

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:Cisco8608#show controllers npu voq-usage interface all instance all loc 0/rp0/cpu0  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Node ID: 0/RP0/CPU0
Intf         Intf     NPU Slice IFG  Sys   VOQ   Flow       VOQ      Port 
name         handle    #    #    #   Port  base  base       port     speed
             (hex)                                          type          
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hu0/1/0/15   f0000dc   0   5    0   320    632      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/14   f0000e4   0   5    0   312    624      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/13   f0000ec   0   5    0   304    616      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/12   f0000f4   0   5    0   296    608      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/11   f0000fc   0   5    0   288    600      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/10   f000104   0   5    0   280    592      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/9    f00010c   0   5    0   272    584      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/8    f000114   0   5    0   264    576      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/7    f00011c   0   4    1   256    568      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/6    f000124   0   4    1   248    560      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/5    f00012c   0   4    1   240    552      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/4    f000134   0   4    1   232    544      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/3    f00013c   0   4    1   224    536      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/2    f000144   0   4    1   216    528      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/1    f00014c   0   4    1   208    520      0        local    100G
Hu0/1/0/0    f0000d4   0   4    1   200    512      0        local    100G
FH0/2/0/3    f00017c   0   4    1   416    672      0        local    400G
FH0/2/0/2    f000184   0   4    0   408    664      0        local    400G
FH0/2/0/1    f00018c   0   4    0   400    656      0        local    400G
FH0/2/0/0    f000174   0   3    1   392    640      0        local    400G 

• NPU #: NPU number
  – NPU number should be 0 for 8100/8200/8608 (8000 fixed & centralized systems)
  – NPU number should be 0, 1, or 2 for 88-LC0-36FH line card (not shown above)
  – NPU number should be should be 0, 1 for 88-LC0-34H14FH line card (not shown above)
• NPU core: Slice number
  – Slice number should be between 0 and 5 for 8200/8608 (8000 fixed & centralized systems)
  – Slice number should be between 0 and 7 for 8111-32EH (8100 fixed system)
  – Slice number shoulbe be 0,1, or 2 for 8800 Line cards (not shown above)
• PP port: IFG number, should be 0 or 1 within slice

Port allocation

Cisco 8201

Cisco 8201 is made of a single Q100 NPU.

The table below shows port assignment to different slices and IFG:

Cisco 8202

Cisco 8202 is made of a single Q100 NPU.

Cisco 8201-32FH

Cisco 8201-32FH is made of a single Q200 NPU.

Cisco 8202-32FH-M

Cisco 8202-32FH-M is made of a single Q200 NPU. It supports MACSec on all ports.

Cisco 8201-24H8FH

Cisco 8201-24H8FH is made of a single Q200 NPU. This system can support 24 ports 100 GbE and 8 ports 400 GbE.

Cisco 8101-32FH

Cisco 8101-32FH is made of a single Q200L NPU.

Cisco 8101-32H

Cisco 8101-32H is made of a single Q202L NPU.

Cisco 8102-64H

Cisco 8102-64H is made of a single Q201L NPU.

Cisco 8111-32EH

Cisco 8111-32EH is made of a single G100 NPU.

Cisco 8608

The Cisco 8608 router is a part of Cisco’s Centralized Architecture based chassis design. Centralized systems have redundant Route Processors (RP w/CPU), redundant Switch cards (SCs w/Cisco Silicon One Q200 NPU) and in-service replaceable modular port adapters (MPA).

8800-LC-36FH

There are four Q100 NPUs on these line cards.

Note: x is slot number in Cisco 8800 router

88-LC0-36FH-M and 88-LC0-36FH

There are three Q200 NPUs on these line cards.
88-LC0-36FH-M and 88-LC0-36FH are identical in all ways except the former can support MACSec and the latter cannot.

88-LC0-36FH-M

88-LC0-36FH

Note: x is slot number in Cisco 8800 router

8800-LC-48H

There are two Q100 NPUs on these line cards.

Note: x is slot number in Cisco 8800 router

88-LC0-34H14FH

There are two Q200 NPUs on these line cards.

Note: x is slot number in Cisco 8800 router

Modification History