MX304 System Overview

• Increased scalability—The MX304 scales to 4.8 Tbps in a single chassis. It supports 400 GbE, 100 GbE, 50 GbE, 40 GbE, 25 GbE, and 10 GbE interfaces, giving hyperscalers, cloud providers and service providers the performance and scalability needed as networks grow. With a chipset designed specifically for the unique needs and opportunities of the multiservice edge, the MX304 router delivers massive logical scale, flexibility and programmability. The purpose-built ASICs in the MX304 provide enhanced packet processing for both full IP functionality and MPLS transport, accommodating the service scale as traffic continues to increase.

• Space-optimized, power-efficient cloud-era routing platform—The MX304 compact form factor enables the chassis to be deployed in cabinets, meeting the installation requirements for co-locations, central offices, and regional networks in emerging markets and transport-focused environments.

• Always-on infrastructure base—The MX304 is engineered with full hardware redundancy for the Routing Engines, power supplies, and cooling fans allowing service providers to meet stringent service-level agreements (SLAs) across the core.

• Multiservice Edge delivered at high scale—The MX304 is based on the TRIO 6 chipset making it a true multiservice edge box. It integrates with existing service provider and cloud use cases, for example Business Edge, Peering, Backhaul, VPC Gateway, and Enterprise WAN. The Routing Engine is based on the latest CPU with 8 cores and 128 GB RAM, enabling the MX304 to meet the high scale requirements of control plane features.

• Inline MACsec—MX304 has MACsec available on all ports and at all speeds in the inline mode. Inline MACsec means no added latency in throughput performance and without the need for an external component (PHY/Crypto Engine).

The MX304 router contains redundant, pluggable, Routing Engines and supports up to three line-card MICs (LMICs). Each LMIC has 4x400 Gbps ports, 16x100 Gbps ports, or a combination. LMIC's have the optics directly on the linecard and are Field Replaceable Unit (FRU)s, but the LMICs aren't hot-removable-or hot-pluggable.

The MX304 is a compact 2 U router. You can stack several routers in a single floor-to-ceiling rack for increased port density per unit of floor space.

The router provides two dedicated line card slots for LMICs. You can also add a third LMIC into one of the Routing Engine slots. As listed in Table 1, the MX304 router has up to two redundant Routing Engines, two power supply modules, and three fan modules. The two dedicated power supply modules support AC, DC, or HVAC/DC power, the cooling system has three fan modules.

The MX304 router supports the components in Table 2, listed in alphabetic order.

Only a fully configured router provides complete redundancy. All other configurations provide partial redundancy. The following major hardware components are redundant:

• Routing Engines—A redundant system consists of two Routing Engines which are available as field-replaceable units (FRUs). One Routing Engine functions as the primary and the other functions as the backup. If the primary host subsystem (or either of its components) fails, the backup takes over as the primary. The Routing Engine installed in slot 0 functions as the default primary Routing Engine.

• Power supplies—The router requires two power modules for 1+1 redundancy. Table 3 shows the power redundancy supported on the AC, DC, and high-voltage AC/DC (HVAC/DC) routers. If one power supply fails in a fully redundant system, the other power supply provides full power to the router without interruption.

  Table 3: Power Redundancy

  Power Supply	Power Supply Module Redundancy
  AC	1+1
  DC	1+1
  HVAC/DC	1+1

• Cooling system—The redundant cooling system has three fan modules. The fan modules are at the rear of the router. The host subsystem controls and monitors the fans. All three fans are required for full redundancy. If a fan fails or the temperature rises above the temperature threshold, the host subsystem automatically adjusts the speed of the remaining fans to keep the temperature within the acceptable range.

  CAUTION:

  For a fully configured router, all the three fan modules must be operational. If a fan module failures, replace it immediately.

Field-replaceable units (FRUs) are router components that can be replaced at the customer site (see Table 4). Replacing most FRUs requires minimal router downtime. The router uses the following types of FRUs:

• Hot-removable and hot-insertable FRUs—You can remove and replace these components without powering off the router or disrupting the routing functions.

• Hot-pluggable FRUs—You can remove and replace these components without powering off the router. Removing the component interrupts the routing functions of the system.

Table 4 lists the FRUs for the router.