Cisco Enhances Core and Edge Routing Portfolio With New Routers and High Density Line Cards

Enterprise Networks & Servers, Jan 2004

Cisco Systems has added to its 12000 Series Router with new Cisco 12800 Routers, a 40 gigabit-per-second (Gbps)-perslot system with complementary higher density OC-192/STM-64 and OC-48/STM-16 line cards that use the greater system capacity, and new Cisco 12010 and 12006 Routers, 2.5-Gbps-per-slot systems offered in 10- and six-slot chassis.

The Cisco 7600 Series introduces a new system processor, Supervisor Engine 720-3BXL, support for additional Layer 2 and Layer 3 Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) VPN and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) services, greater scalability, and an enhanced Flex WAN module that doubles the service performance while using existing Cisco 7200 and Cisco 7500 port adapters. "In order to drive growth and profitability, service providers are simplifying and consolidating their networks," said Mike Volpi, senior vice president and general manager of the Routing Technology Group at Cisco.

"Additionally the drive to implement premium packet services is creating new revenue opportunity and service differentiation for carriers. To meet these demands, Cisco has developed new routing products which enable service providers to achieve greater scale and reliability, reducing total cost of ownership and accelerating deployment of new IP services."

"We are constantly evolving our network to deliver a wider range of services to our customer base," explained David Fellows, chief technology officer at service provider Comcast Cable. "For example, we are currently in the process of enhancing our high-speed Internet service by increasing bandwidth per user and improving customer connectivity to the Internet. The latest additions to Cisco's core and edge routing portfolio give us the performance and scalability required to introduce new services while extending our investments in deployed Cisco 7600 and Cisco 12000 routing platforms."

Providing 40-Gbps-per-slot capacity in existing 10- and 16-slot Cisco 12000 Series chassis, the Cisco 12800 Router supports all available Cisco 12000 Series line cards. The Cisco 12000 Series interfaces help deliver core and edge applications such as highspeed peering, IP VPN, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and frame relay services in a single Cisco 12800 Series chassis.

The Cisco ISE cards support IPv4 and IPv6 features such as quality of service and multicast for delivering premium data and real-time voice and video services. The new chassis support all existing 2.5Gbps line cards and can be upgraded to a 10Gbps systems through a software key.

The new Cisco 12000 Series Performance Route Processor-2 (PRP-2) improves route scalability by doubling CPU performance, and increasing memory for large route tables to support up to 4 million routes.

The new Cisco 12000 Series 1-Port Channelized OC-12c/STM-4c (DS 1/E1) POS ISE Line Card enables customers to combine dense channelization functionality for low-speed termination with high-density, OC-192/STM-64 and OC-48/STM-16 interfaces in a single chassis. The Cisco 12000 Series 4-Port OC3/STM1 ATM ISE Line Card offers traffic queuing, shaping and congestion management hardware features and transports ATM over MPLS, providing service providers an opportunity to converge ATM core traffic over an MPLS backbone.

The Supervisor Engine 720-3BXL, the new route processor for the Cisco 7600 Series, powers high-density private line, metro Ethernet, and subscriber service aggregation for QoS-enabled IP/MPLS services with new hardware-based acceleration for IPv6 and Layer 2 and Layer 3 MPLS VPNs. This next-generation processor integrates a 720Gbps switch fabric with route processing into a single card.

The new Cisco 7600 Series Enhanced Flex WAN module delivers both feature and interface parity with the Cisco 7500 Series so service providers can scale to deliver services at up to 10Gbps and use their existing IP/MPLS infrastructure to deliver point-topoint and point-to-multipoint services such as Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs and VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service).