RAM Suggestions for most BGP Routers

Although my post provides a rough estimation about how much RAM could a BGP router take (70M bytes for 100,000 routes), I would like to suggest you to buy the maximum size of RAM of your router model in your deployment.

For example, a Cisco router 7600 with RSP 720, the maximum size of RAM is 4G bytes. I would like to suggest you to just buy 4G RAM for it.

Why? You may consider the following trade-offs:

[Cons]
You have to spend extra USD 10,000 for RAM (a worst estimates, you could get much cheaper deals)

[Pros]

1. For your company, you could save costs for such planned down time only to upgrade RAM. Down time might cost more than you have expected. I list some here:
   
   • Bad images from customers. You might loose them and as well as your income.
   • Bad images from your external BGP peers. You make them uncomfortable so you might need more efforts to call for their help in the future.
   • Penalty associated with down time. Money lost is counting with time.
   • Wasted bandwidth fee. Bandwidth fee can never be returned during your down time. The amount is a lot especially when your router connects to lots of high speed links.
2. For yourself, you could save your headaches. I list some here:
   
   • You might loose your job in case of failed upgrade.
   • You need to earn more budgets just for that upgrade in the end. Especially difficult for such bad economic situation.
   • You need to sacrifice your time with your family for such upgrades

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As a conclusion, USD 10,000 is not that much compared to those you have to pay later. Getting the maximum RAM is good for you, I suggest!