Cisco Introduces Metro Ethernet Switching Solutions for Service Providers

Enterprise Networks & Servers, Feb 2004

Cisco Systems has announced product additions and enhancements to its metro Ethernet switching portfolio, including the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Metro Series, a line of fixed configuration, customer-located switches.

It also includes a new 48-port Mixed-Media Gigabit Ethernet module for the Cisco 7600 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and product enhancements to its Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series switches.

Also announced are new performance benchmarks for the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco 7600 Series. The benchmarks comprise scalability results of one million IPv4 routes, 500,000 IPv6 routes or 800,000 Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) VPN routes for large scale deployments of L2 and L3 VPN networks.

The Cisco Catalyst 3750 Metro Series access switch will help service providers deliver more differentiated metro Ethernet services such as Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs with service SLAs to their business customers. With redundant AC/DC power and flexible software options, the switch also offers a cost-effective path for meeting current and future metro business service needs.

The new 48-port Mixed-Media Gigabit Ethernet module for the Cisco 7600 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series offers service providers increased architectural flexibility as they design scalable metro networks. This module is designed for high-performance metro deployments and features 48 "mix and match" Small Form-factor optics to address a full range of media types and distances. In addition, this module features 40Gbps switch fabric connections and 9K jumbo Frame size support and is upgradeable to Distributed Forwarding Capability (DFC3A).

New Cisco IOS features such as VLAN Translation and Class of Service (CoS) Mutation on the Cisco 7600 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series allow deployment of scalable Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN service capabilities. VLAN Translation provides Layer 2 VPN subscribers access to additional services such as Internet access and IP VPN by allowing these users to utilize their existing VLAN tags instead of service provider-coordinated VLAN tags. CoS Mutation also gives service providers the capability to preserve end-user QoS across the service provider network.

New Cisco IOS 802.1Q tunneling capabilities on the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series give service providers a mid-density infrastructure option for deploying transparent LAN services to their business customers. This enhancement gives the ability to utilize a single VLAN for transporting and preserving customers' multiple internal VLANs across their metro network.

"For our Carrier Ethernet Service, we chose Cisco in this instance because their metro Ethernet product portfolio, including the Cisco 7600 Series and the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series, helps enable us to build a scalable and reliable, service-driven, high-speed Ethernet Swiss-wide network," said Heinz Herren, head of marketing, Swisscom-Fixnet Wholesale.