Purpose

This article provides information about the configuration limits and performance metrics of the vCloud Networking
and Security 5.1 Edge – compact, large, and x-large versions. Use this information to make a deployment choice
for Edge instances.

*Resolution

Details of Edge instances used in performance metrics comparison

Edge (Compact) Edge (Large) Edge (X-Large)

vCPU 1 2 2
Memory 256 MB 1 GB 8 GB
Disk 320 MB 320 MB 4.4 GB

Tested Limits

Following table shows the tested soft limits per vCloud Networking and Security Manager. These soft limits can
be exceeded on a per feature basis depending on the resources and the set of features in use.
Limit vCloud Networking and Security Manager

Number of Edge HA appliances 2,000 Compact / Large Edges or 1,000 X-Large

Edges
Number of clusters 8
Number of hosts with Edge in use 256 (8 clusters * 32 hosts)
Number of hosts in inventory 400
Number of VMs 15000 total VMs, 5000 powered on
Number of networks 5000 VXLANs
Number of firewall rules 100,000
Number of firewall object groups 130,000
Number of DHCP static bindings 25,000
Number of DHCP pools 10,000
Number of static routes 100,000
Number of load balancer pools 3,000
Number of load balancer virtual servers 3,000
Number of members in load balancer pools 30,000

Following table shows the tested soft limits per vCloud Networking and Security Edge.
Limit vCloud Networking and Security Edge
Number of interfaces 10
Number of firewall rules 2,000
Number of NAT rules 2,000
Number of DHCP static bindings 25
Number of DHCP pools 10
Number of static routes 100
Number of load balancer pools 3 (Hard limit: 64)
Number of load balancer virtual servers 3 (Hard limit: 64)

©  2012  VMware  Inc.  All  rights  reserved.                                                                                                                                                                        

 
Number of members per load balancer 10 (Hard limit: 32)
pool
Concurrent IPSec VPN Tunnels 64
Concurrent SSL VPN Tunnels 25 (Compact), 100 (Large)

Firewall and VPN Performance Comparison

Edge (Compact) Edge (Large)

Firewall Performance 3 9.7
(Gbps)
Concurrent Sessions 64,000 1,000,000
New sessions/second 8,000 50,000
IPSec VPN throughput 0.9 2
(Gbps) - H/W acceleration
via AESNI

Load Balancer Performance Comparison

Edge (Large) Edge (X-Large)

Load balancer throughput 2.2 3
– L7 Proxy Mode (Gbps)
Load balancer connections 46,000 50,000
/ sec – L7 Proxy Mode
Load balancer concurrent 8,000 60,000
connections – L7 Proxy
Mode
Load balancer throughput 6 6
– L4 Mode (Gbps)
Load balancer connections 50,000 50,000
/ sec – L4 Mode
Load balancer concurrent 600,000 1,000,000
connections – L4 Mode

Notes:
• Use of Edge (Large) or Edge (X-Large) is recommended for load balancing
• Edge (X-Large) not available in vCD deployment

Test Server Configuration:

• Dell PowerEdge T610 with ESXi 5.1
o CPU: 8 CPUs x 2.393 GHz Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5620
o Memory: 24 GB
o Network: 2x Intel 82599EB 10-gigabit SFI/SFP+

Testing Methodology:
• IXIA IX Chariot applications used for throughput, connections per second and concurrent connections
tests.
• Throughput measured with 1500 byte TCP frame size.
• Throughput measured with accept any to any firewall rule and no additional NAT rules.
• Load balancer performance numbers are for HTTP traffic.
• Feature performance quoted is independent of other features. For example, firewall throughput measured
without load balancer or other services enabled.

©  2012  VMware  Inc.  All  rights  reserved.