Abstract

New H3C Technologies commissioned Tolly to evaluate the performance, capacity, and feature set of the H3C MSR3640X1-HI router. The main focus of the project was to validate the platform’s throughput, routing and VPN scale, automation and WAN optimization features, high-availability mechanisms, and support for advanced MPLS, SR-MPLS, and SRv6 services for enterprise branch and SD-WAN deployments.  

Tolly tested the MSR3640X1-HI as a full-scenario enterprise branch router built around a high-performance multi-core processor and positioned for SD-WAN, cloud interconnect, and automated WAN management. In performance testing, the router delivered 15.84Gbps aggregated IPsec throughput with 1400-byte frames and 7.54Gbps using Spirent’s IPsec iMIX profile. Standard Layer 3 throughput reached 39.57Gbps with 1518-byte frames, while accelerate mode using hardware forwarding achieved 270Gbps aggregated throughput across frame sizes from 64 bytes to 1518 bytes. Tolly also verified support for 128 BGP neighbors, 1,000,000 IPv4 routes in both the routing table and FIB, 1,000,000 IPv6 routes in both the routing table and FIB, and 2,000,000 NAT sessions.  

Operational flexibility and resiliency were major themes in the report. Tolly validated automation support through TCL, Python, Ansible, Embedded Automation Architecture, and NETCONF, along with WAN optimization using Web Cache. The router also supported hot-swappable interface modules and redundant hot-swappable power supplies. High-availability capabilities included NQA for static routing, policy-based routing, and VRRP; BFD with a minimum 10ms interval across routing, VRRP, and MPLS scenarios; intelligent NQA for direct packet-loss measurement; interface CRC error down; and dual-link packet duplication to reduce end-to-end loss.  

The feature set extended far beyond basic branch routing. Tolly verified BGP-LS, BGP FlowSpec for IPv4 and IPv6, MVPN and NG-MVPN, UCMP and ECMP, VXLAN and EVPN VXLAN, PPPoE server and client modes, NAT44/NAT444/NAT66/NAT64, GRE, mGRE, EoGRE, integrated wireless AC functionality, L2TP VPN, IKEv1 and IKEv2, GDVPN, ADVPN, firewall policies, ASPF, IPS, DPI, MPLS OAM and QoS, SR-MPLS BE and TE modes, SRv6 BE and TE modes, EVPN services over SR-MPLS and SRv6, TI-LFA fast reroute, SSL VPN, URL filtering blacklist, DNS application recognition, and anti-virus. Overall, the report presents the MSR3640X1-HI as a high-performance branch and aggregation router that combines strong forwarding efficiency with rich SD-WAN, security, and modern IP/MPLS service capabilities.