FortiGate 3300E and 3301E fast path architecture
The FortiGate 3300E and 3301E each include four NP6 processors. All front panel data interfaces and all of the NP6 processors connect to the integrated switch fabric (ISF). All data traffic passes from the data interfaces through the ISF to the NP6 processors. Because of the ISF, all supported traffic passing between any two data interfaces can be offloaded by the NP6 processors. Data traffic processed by the CPU takes a dedicated data path through the ISF and an NP6 processor to the CPU.
The FortiGate 3300E and 3301E models feature the following front panel interfaces:
- Two 10/100/1000BASE-T Copper (MGMT1 and MGMT2).
- Twelve 10/100/1000BASE-T Copper (1 to 12).
- Four 1/10 GigE BASE-T Copper (13 to 16).
- Fourteen 10/25 GigE SFP+/SFP28 (17 to 30), interface groups: 17 - 20, 21 - 24, 25 - 28, 29-HA1, and 30 - HA2.
- Two 10/25 GigE SFP+/SFP28 (HA1 and HA2, not connected to the NP6 processors).
- Four 40 GigE QSFP+ (31 to 34).
The MGMT interfaces are not connected to the NP6 processors. Management traffic passes to the CPU over a dedicated management path that is separate from the data path. You can also dedicate separate CPU resources for management traffic to further isolate management processing from data processing (see Improving GUI and CLI responsiveness (dedicated management CPU)).
The HA interfaces are also not connected to the NP6 processors. To help provide better HA stability and resiliency, the HA traffic uses a dedicated physical control path that provides HA control traffic separation from data traffic processing.
The separation of management and HA traffic from data traffic keeps management and HA traffic from affecting the stability and performance of data traffic processing.
You can use the following command to display the FortiGate 3300E or 3301E NP6 configuration. The command output shows four NP6s named NP6_0, NP6_1, NP6_2, and NP6_3 and the interfaces (ports) connected to each NP6. This interface to NP6 mapping is also shown in the diagram above.
The command output also shows the XAUI configuration for each NP6 processor. Each NP6 processor has a 40-Gigabit bandwidth capacity. Traffic passes to each NP6 processor over four 10-Gigabit XAUI links. The XAUI links are numbered 0 to 3.
You can also use the diagnose npu np6 port-list command to display this information.
get hardware npu np6 port-list
Chip XAUI Ports Max Cross-chip
Speed offloading
------ ---- ------- ----- ----------
np6_0 0 port1 1G Yes
0 port14 10G Yes
1 port2 1G Yes
1 port15 10G Yes
2 port3 1G Yes
2 port16 10G Yes
3 port13 10G Yes
0-3 port17 25G Yes
0-3 port31 40G Yes
------ ---- ------- ----- ----------
np6_1 0 port4 1G Yes
1 port5 1G Yes
2 port6 1G Yes
3
0-3 port18 25G Yes
0-3 port19 25G Yes
0-3 port20 25G Yes
0-3 port24 25G Yes
0-3 port23 25G Yes
0-3 port32 40G Yes
------ ---- ------- ----- ----------
np6_2 0 port7 1G Yes
1 port8 1G Yes
2 port9 1G Yes
3
0-3 port22 25G Yes
0-3 port21 25G Yes
0-3 port26 25G Yes
0-3 port25 25G Yes
0-3 port28 25G Yes
0-3 port33 40G Yes
------ ---- ------- ----- ----------
np6_3 0 port10 1G Yes
1 port11 1G Yes
2 port12 1G Yes
2 port29 10G Yes
3 port30 10G Yes
0-3 port27 25G Yes
0-3 port34 40G Yes
------ ---- ------- ----- ----------
Distributing traffic evenly among the NP6 processors can optimize performance. For details, see Optimizing NP6 performance by distributing traffic to XAUI links.
You can also add LAGs to improve performance. For details, see Increasing NP6 offloading capacity using link aggregation groups (LAGs).
Interface groups and changing data interface speeds
FortiGate-3300E and 3301E front panel data interfaces 17 to 30, HA1, and HA2 are divided into the following groups:
- port17 - port20
- port21 - port24
- port25 - port28
- port29 - ha1
- port30 - ha2
All of the interfaces in a group operate at the same speed. Changing the speed of an interface changes the speeds of all of the interfaces in the same group. For example, if you change the speed of port17 from 25Gbps to 10Gbps the speeds of port18 to port20 are also changed to 10Gbps.
Another example, port21 to port28 are operating at 25Gbps. If you want to install 10GigE transceivers in port21 to port28 to convert all of these data interfaces to connect to 10Gbps networks, you can enter the following from the CLI:
config system interface
edit port21
set speed 10000full
next
edit port25
set speed 10000full
end
Every time you change a data interface speed, when you enter the end command, the CLI confirms the range of interfaces affected by the change. For example, if you change the speed of port25 the following message appears:
config system interface
edit port25
set speed 10000full
end
port25-port28 speed will be changed to 10000full due to hardware limit.
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