The Cisco ASR (Aggregation Services Routers) 1000 series are targeted to the Service Provider edge or Enterprise WAN connection and provide a combination of routing and other select features (encryption, packet inspection, and more) in a modular, upgradeable chassis. Both software features and hardware components support in line, in service upgrades; with all the available entries in the series featuring some form (software or hardware) of redundance/failover. Performance-wise, the vendor targets this new line to the midrange--between their existing 7200/7300 and 7600/Catalyst 6000 offerings--with the ASR 1000s able to utilize SPAs (Shared Port Adapters, more below) supported by the 7600 or Catalyst 6000 switches.

At the core of the ASR 1000s is the vendor's programmable QuantumFlow Processor (QFP). With a combination of application-specific ASICs and general purpose processors, QFP features noted by the vendor include 40 custom and multi-threaded (four threads per) Packet Processing Engines that can function concurrently and all have access to the entire packet; multi-level instruction caches that facilitate the application of processing code to multiple flows (i.e., flows requiring the same set of services can access the required processing code directly from the instruction caches); over 100,000 hardware QoS queues; and a Traffic Manager capable of monitoring "millions of events per second."

Three ASR 1000 chassis are available in the line; all support dual AC or DC power supplies (but not both).

The ASR 1002 is a 2 RU unit with a built-in Route Processor (RP, which handles control plane duties including network control packets processing, computation of routes, and connection setup), built-in SPA Interface Processor (SIP) with support for three half-height or one full height plus one half-height SPA, and a single Embedded Services Processor (ESP), which houses the QFP described above and provides data handling. Four Gig Ethernet ports are additionally built into the ASR 1002.

The ASR 1004 is a 4 RU unit with support for a single RP and ESP (these are plug-in line cards) and up to 8 half-height SPAs via dual SIPs.

The ASR 1006 is a 6 RU box with support for dual (redundant) RPs and ESPs, and up to 12 SPAs via 3 SIPs.

Three different ESP modules are available for the ASR 1000s, boasting bandwidth performance of 5 (1002 only), 10, and now 20 Gb/sec (1004 and 1006 only), respectively.

Available SPAs for the line include those supporting multi-port Fast and Gigabit Ethernet through single 10 Gig Ethernet port cards, as well as T1/E1, T3/E3, and OC3/OC12/STM-1 to STM-4 flavors; with the vendor noting that the list of available port cards is expected to be expanded over time.

All of the boxes are driven by the vendor's Cisco IOS XE software; which is modular in nature (enabling mix and match purchasing of enabled services to be deployed on the hardware), and is based on Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2SR. And while the ASR 1006 boasts hardware-level redundancy and failover between its RP and ESP pairs (the RPs and ESPs can failover independently of one another), the lower offerings (ASR 1002/ASR 1004) feature software-level redundancy wherein dual IOS software packages can be loaded on the single RP. The second package can be identical to the first for straight backup purposes; or can be a differing XE package (and even a differing XE release) for upgrade purposes. Because they support hardware-level failover, The RPs in the ASR 1006 support only single software images.

Other new features in the ASR 1000s (in addition to the new 20 Gb/sec ESP mentioned above) include the ability to recognize better than 60 applications (Network-Based Application Recognition) for traffic optimization purposes (prioritize, limit, or block apps); and threat-control capabilities via Layer 2-7 "Flexible Packet Matching." These new features are available now at no cost to customers with a Cisco IOS XE Advanced IP Services software image; while the new 20 Gb/sec ESP has a price tag of $50,000.

The ASR 1000 series are now available. Visit the Cisco Systems Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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