Cisco ASR 9000

Cisco has released, as announced, some information on a new Access router platform. It is not as anticipated by many called the ASR14000, but it is, surprise, the  ASR9000.

At the time of writing, not all of the information has been published on the Cisco Website so I can’t  provide a lot of details yet, but to give you an idea, here are some facts as published in the brochure:

• 6 slot and 10 slot configuration
• 400 gigabits per slot
• 6.4 terabits per chassis
• IOS XR
• Cisco Advanced Video Services Modules (AVSM)
• Linecards are Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) ready
• Modular power supplies, brought online as required when capacity is increased

More details will follow once they have been published by Cisco.

Some of the rumours say that this will be the release of a new access router platform, rumored to be called the ASR 14000. There is not a lot of information out there officially so far.
cisconetblog.com had a short post about the new platform recently, but the post has been taken down shortly after. You can still find a copy of it in Google’s cache. The post confirmed that the new platform is based on the CRS-1 hardware (with some restrictions) and will be running IOS-XR.

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Juniper announced today the release of JUNOS 9.0. As indicated previously, the new major release integrates the ScreenOS security features, and as allows using those features on the J-Series routers.
Jon Oltsik, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group said: “Running a single-source operating system across a high-performance network infrastructure enables faster innovation by providing network administrators with the confidence to quickly turn on new network features without compromising network performance, stability and security. A common operating system across the enterprise network infrastructure can further reduce administrative, training and management costs, which translates into lower cost of ownership.”
JUNOS 9.0 adds the following features to the J-series services routers:

• Industry-leading high-performance firewall capabilities based on Juniper’s field proven ScreenOS, including zones, policies, and application-layer gateway support to secure both critical information and the network from external threats and denial-of-service attacks;
• Simplified configuration for IPSec VPN supporting secure connectivity over a variety of public networks, allowing flexibility in network design and the ability to optimize for cost or performance; and
• Chassis clustering that enables stateful device and services failover with an active/backup control plane and active/active data plane, all within a single system view, delivering continuity by maintaining high availability and systems-level resiliency for networks.

JUNOS 9.0 software is also available for the T-series and M-series routers, the MX-series Ethernet services router, and the EX-series Ethernet switches.

Read the full press release.

The heart of the ASR 1000 is the QuantumFlow Processor. A highly dense custom ASIC providing up to 100Gpbs (up to 20Gbps in the ASR series routers) of packet processing bandwidth. This allows the entire payload and headers of frames to be processed by the chip, accelerating Deep Packet Inspection and application-specific processing.

The Cisco ASR 1000 series is available in different packaging options, differentiated by the number of I/O slots, capacity, redundancy, and power:

• Cisco ASR 1002 (2-rack-unit [2RU] chassis with the modular Cisco ASR 1000 Series Embedded Services Processor [ESP] and fixed Cisco ASR 1000 Series RP1 and Cisco ASR 1000 Series SPA Interface Processor [SIP] with 4 built-in Gigabit Ethernet ports)

• Cisco ASR 1004 (4RU chassis with modular ESP, route processor, and SIPs)

• Cisco ASR 1006 (6RU chassis with modular and redundant ESPs, route processor, and SIPs for SPA connectivity)

As the above list shows, only the ASR 1006 allows the use of redundant forwarding planes (ESPs) and route processors.

Two different ESPs will be available: ESP-5G and ESP-10G. The performance of the ESP is the core factor for all high-touch services provided on the ASR platform, including:

• IPsec
• QoS
• NBAR (Network Based Application Recognition)
• GRE
• Firewall
• Full and Sampled NetFlow

QoS is supported at multigigabit rates without any significant degradation to other data plane-bounded functions, and no degradation to control plane-related features.

The linecards used in the ASR 1000 are the already familiar SPAs. Following is the complete list of SPAs that are supported at platform first customer shipment (FCS):

• 8-port Gigabit Ethernet
• 1-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet
• 2-, 5-, and 10-port Gigabit Ethernet
• 8-port Fast Ethernet
• 8-port T1/E1
• 2- and 4-port T3/E3
• 2- and 4-port OC-3/STM-1 Packet over SONET/SDH (PoS)
• 1-port OC-12/STM-4 PoS
• 2- and 4 -port Channelized T3
• 4-port serial (12-in-1)

Customers include BT, who is going to use it as part of their 21st Century network and also NTT who use it as part of their IPTV network roll-out.