Cisco Systems Inc. today came out with the second round of products and enhancements related to its IP Next-Generation Networks vision, which it initially discussed in December.
The three key tenets of the NGN strategy are application convergence, service convergence and network convergence. New this month are additions to the company’s Cisco 7600 Series routing portfolio; broader interface options for several Cisco products; a set of SIP-based application servers; enhancements around control plane features for video applications; and an extended deal with Sprint Corp. related to the carrier’s move to an all-IP network.
Cisco has added to its 7600 Series family a new four-slot, five-rack unit high product called the 7604 router. This product is ideal for triple-play applications in which metro Ethernet aggregation is used, says Tony Bates, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s carrier core and multiservice business unit. And because it’s small, it can be used in a remote terminal, he adds.
The small form factor router accommodates line cards from DS0 to OC48 as well as 10/100/1000 Ethernet routing speeds and is designed to enable service providers to deploy L2/L3 VPN, and triple-play services in small points-of-presence and Internet gateways, or for enterprises requiring WAN aggregation at the edge of the network.
Additionally, new IOS enhancements announced today provide key upgrades to the Cisco 7600 Series of routers such as hierarchical QoS, enhanced capabilities for prioritizing IP traffic, and dynamic multipoint virtual private network security capabilities.
Also new from Cisco is Cisco Interface Flexibility (I-Flex) design for Shared Port Adapters (SPAs) and SPA Interface Processors (SIPs). This design provides broad interface options, including copper, channelized, PoS, ATM and Ethernet, for the Cisco carrier-routing portfolio including the 7304, 7600, 10000, XR 12000 and CRS-1 Series routers. Bates says these SIPs and SPAs can result in huge sparing savings for service providers.
The Cisco 7604 Router is expected to be available by the end of this month and will be list priced starting at $3,000. The Cisco SPA and SIP solutions start at a list price of $2,500.
Also today, Cisco officially introduced its Cisco Service Control Platform, a set of SIP-based application servers based on Cisco’s DynamicSoft acquisition. These servers can enable a variety of applications. For example, Sprint PCS uses the equipment for its push-to-talk application. Comcast Corp. uses it for rich media offerings.
In other news from Cisco, the company divulged that it has brought IOS XR software to its 12000 routers. Offering key features such as secure virtualization, continuous system operation and multiservice scale, the Cisco XR 12000 provides intelligent routing solutions scaling from 2.5gpbs to nX 10gbps per slot. And it allows service providers to isolate public and private services through the secure virtualization of a single router into separate physical and logical routing domains.
