Spirent TestCenter Scales to 768 100G Interfaces
Independent test to validate the performance and scalability of H3C’s data center core switch
Data centers keep growing in two ways: They’re larger, with more servers connected than ever before, and they’re faster, with server NIC speeds of 10 gigabits and higher now common For the core switches that tie everything together, one requirement stands out above all else: Scale to unprecedented heights
That’s exactly what H3C has done with its S12516X-AF data center core switch, setting a new world record by demonstrating the highest bandwidth capacity for a single switch with 768 100G Ethernet interfaces.
About the Test
The device under test for this project was an H3C S12516X-AF data center core switch fully loaded with two supervisor modules and 16 line-card modules, each supporting 48 100-gigabit Ethernet interfaces.
This project assessed the H3C S12516X-AF using eight test cases, most involving 768 100G Ethernet interfaces:
- IPv4 unicast throughput with BGP routing (1 route per port)
- IPv4 route scalability throughput (nearly 1 million routes total)
- IPv4 unicast latency and jitter with BGP routing
- IPv4 routing scalability latency and jitter
- IPv6 unicast throughput with MP-BGP routing
- IPv6 unicast latency and jitter with MP-BGP routing
- EVPN scalability with VXLAN tunnels
- ISSU / ISSD failover times
The test bed included the Spirent TestCenter traffic generator/analyzer with dX3 10/25/40/50/100G hardware modules and direct-attached (DACS) copper cables. The Spirent test instrument can offer traffic at wire speed concurrently on all ports with timestamp resolution of 2.5 nanoseconds.
The primary metrics in performance tests were throughput, latency, and jitter EVPN tests examined VXLAN tunnel scalability as well as throughput, latency, and jitter ISSU tests used frame loss to derive failover time during software image upgrades and downgrades.
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