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NetIron MLX vs. XMR

By Anonymous on 20 Nov 2010
By: 
Charles Hurbert

Customers have repeatedly asked me what the real difference between Brocade's NetIron MLX and their XMR series router. I've know for some time that generally speaking, the XMR offers improved performance over it's cousin the MLX. However I was never able to quantify and vocalize exactly what that meant in real world applications. After dragging my feet for far too long, I dug into Brocade's data sheets and did some research on the web and am pleased to summarize the differences between these two models as thus:

The XMR can handle roughly twice the routes of an MLX.

In tech talk, this translates to 1M routes vs. 512K in IPv4 and 240K vs. 112K in IPv6. Obviously this depends on the amount of CAM supported by the scalable configuration. (UPDATE: See this blog on CAM Cramming.) However, this statistic allows us to compare the two units side by side. If you're interested in the whole statistical comparison, you can check out some of the key stats on both models below:

Brocade XMR Series

  • 10 million BGP routes and up to 500 BGP peers
  • 1 million IPv4 routes in hardware (FIB)
  • 240,000 IPv6 routes in hardware (FIB)
  • 2,000 BGP/MPLS VPNs and up to 1 million VPN routes
  • 32,000 VLLs per system
  • 16,000 VPLSes and up to 1 million VPLS MAC addresses
  • 4,094 VLANs and up to 2 million MAC addresses

Brocade MLX Series

  • 2 million IPv4 BGP routes and up to 256 BGP peers
  • 512K IPv4 routes in hardware (FIB)
  • 112K IPv6 routes in hardware (FIB)
  • 400 BGP/MPLS VPNs and up to 256K VPN routes
  • 8K VLLs per system
  • 4K VPLS instances and up to 256K VPLS MACs
  • 4094 VLANs, and up to 1 million MAC addresses

The next logical question would be how these two sister models are alike:

  • form factor
  • port density
  • levels of redundency
  • full L3 support

(Other than the amount of CAM/routes supported) The XMR and MLX models are virtually identical

Feel free to shoot me an email or give me a jingle with questions or for a quote on any XMR/MLX gear. Charles Hurbert charles(at)terabitsystems(dot)com 415-483-1190 Direct AIM: chazfilez75

November 20, 2010
Charles Hurbert