Specifications

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Cisco ASA 5580 Getting Started Guide
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Chapter 2 Maximizing Throughput on the ASA 5580
Optimizing Performance
• If using 10-Gigabit Ethernet adapters, which require optimal performance
from the adapters, place the adapters in a slot on the high-capacity I/O bridge
(PCIe X8)—slot 5, slot 7, and slot 8.
Note A 10-Gigabit Ethernet adapter and port can deliver 10-Gigabit
Ethernet full-duplex on one port given the right traffic profile. The
bus bandwidth limits the 10-Gigabit Ethernet two-port performance
on the same adapter to under 16 Gbps full-duplex.
• Four-port adapters can be placed in any slot, but the bus might be a bottleneck
if each port has 1 Gigabit full duplex worth of traffic. The bus bandwidth on
the normal speed bus limits the aggregate bandwidth on one adapter to under
8 Gbps.
Note You can use the show io-bridge command to see the traffic
throughput over each bus. For more information about using the
command, see the Cisco Security Appliance Command Reference.
• The management ports are capable of passing through traffic by removing the
management-only command. However, the management only ports have not
been optimized to pass data traffic and will not perform as well as the ports
on the adapters.
Figure 2-5 shows an example of traffic configured to traverse ports on slot 7 and
slot 8 on the high-capacity I/O bridge (PCIe x8).