NAT consumes router resources. Understanding limits helps capacity planning.
CPU overhead:
- Each packet needs header modification
- Checksum recalculation required
- Translation table lookups
Memory usage:
- Each active connection needs a table entry
- connections is about - MB
Connection limits:
- Practical limit: - connections per public IP
- Enterprise NAT handles millions of sessions
Timeout tuning:
- Shorter timeouts free ports faster
- Too short breaks legitimate connections
Monitoring:
- Track NAT table utilization
- Alert when approaching port exhaustion