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ACL Performance Calculator

Calculate access control list processing impact on throughput

Total number of access control list entries. More rules = more lookup time (linear for standard, optimized for TCAM).
rules
Smaller packets mean more packets per second at the same bandwidth, increasing ACL processing load.
bytes
The interface speed / link bandwidth.
Gbps
Standard ACLs match source IP only (fast). Extended match 5-tuple (slower). Named/complex may include regex or deep fields.

Results

Packets/sec at Line Ratepps
Lookup Time per Packetns
Total ACL Processing Load%
Processing Delay per Packetμs
Max Throughput with ACLGbps
Throughput Impact%
How it works: ACL lookup time depends on rule count and type. TCAM hardware provides near-constant lookup for up to ~1024 rules. Beyond that, software-based linear search adds significant per-packet delay. Impact = (line_rate_pps - max_acl_pps) / line_rate_pps.