Cisco strikes the MotherLode with new router: launch redefines the network of the future and the traffic that will run on it

America's Network,  June 15, 2004  by Robert Poe

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In late May, Cisco Systems set a lot of service providers free. It announced a new router that it calls, making sure no one misses the point, CRS-1, for Carrier Routing System. The router offers huge potential capacity and a flexible new operating system. It represents a major step for Cisco, giving it the kind of dedicated box aimed at carriers' core IP networks that smaller hotshots like Juniper and Avici already offer.

But it's also a big thing for the service providers. Finally, they can stop wondering what the giant will bring to the party. They can get on with the job of refreshing their networks to meet new capacity and service demands, free of the need to run cost and performance comparisons between what is and what might be. It's like a get-out-of-jail card for the career game.

In different configurations, the CRS-1 can provide switching capacity from 1.2Tbps to as high as 92Tbps. New software called IOS XR allows equipment and service upgrades without interrupting service, and makes it possible to set up and run separate logical routers on the same equipment. That lets service providers replace a number of different types of routers, such as aggregation, peering and core nodes, with a single piece of equipment, tremendously simplifying the network as well as cutting costs. It also increases reliability and security. Capacity is beyond anything else currently available, and because it is so hugely expandable, Cisco claims the equipment, once installed, can stay in place for 10 years or more.

CAPACITY TO SPARE

But for now, capacity in the high-end configurations is beyond what anyone needs. "I don't think anybody thinks there's spectacular demand for new incremental capacity," says John Ryan, chief analyst at research firm RHK. For sure, traffic over the Internet, the usual yardstick for estimating growth of global data traffic, isn't quadrupling every year as many had expected it to, observes Joe McGarvey, senior analyst with Current Analysis. "I believe it's still maybe doubling every year."

Still, bandwidth demand is picking up. Following the big build-outs in the late 1990s, "There is an exhaustion of the bandwidth they put in," notes McGarvey. And even mere 100% annual increases will soon generate pressure for more capacity. Although global router sales were essentially flat in 2002, they will grow at a compound annual rate of 20% from 2002 through 2007, says Kevin Mitchell, an analyst at Infonetics Research.

But another pressure, McGarvey observes, may prove equally important: the pressure to improve efficiency. For example, a number of service providers are trying to "converge" various types of traffic onto a single IP/MPLS backbone, according to Henry Goldberg, senior analyst for networking at In-Stat/MDR. These may include things like different corporate data services, frame relay, ATM, IP VPNs, and backbone Internet traffic. And there is always the ultimate convergence dream: moving voice traffic entirely from circuit-switched to IP networks. All in all, says Goldberg, "I think there will be a growing demand for this type of product in future Tier 1 service provider networks."

FORK IN THE ROAD

Ironically, the introduction of the new product, even though it lets Cisco finally more than match its competitors' core routers, should also give those same competitors a boost. For one thing, "No one does anything unless Cisco weighs in," observes McGarvey. "Now that it's out, it should spur people who have been sitting around to get moving." And they might move straight towards the challengers.

"Cisco has taken a deep breath and launched an entirely new platform," explains Ryan of RHK. But because the new software won't work on previous Cisco equipment, customers will find switching to another vendor no more difficult than moving to the new Cisco product. "It's the classic dilemma of folks introducing a new platform," Ryan notes.

And what's good for competitors is even better for customers: Besides no longer having to wait to see what Cisco is going to come up with, they can suddenly choose freely among all the vendors in the field. And that may be the tastiest freedom of all.

Global core router
market shares, Q1 2004

Cisco     65%
Juniper   27%
Avici      2%
Other      6%

Source: Infonetics Research

Note: Table made from pie chart.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Questex Media Group, Inc.
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