In
a public event marking the 20th anniversary of its founding, Cisco
Systems unveiled its next generation CRS-1 Carrier Routing System, a
carrier-class, terabit-scalable, core routing platform aimed at large
service providers and research organizations. The Cisco CRS-1, which was
developed in-house over a period of four years and at cost of $500
million, leverages a series of hardware and software advances. Key among
these are:
- a non-blocking, self-routed multi-shelf architecture that scales
in capacity from 1.2 terabits per second (Tbps) up to 92 Tbps. A
single-shelf design will also offered, featuring a 16-slot line-card
shelf with total switching capacity of 1.2 Tbps. - a 40-Gbps ASIC — the Cisco Silicon Packet Processor (SPP) — that
was developed in collaboration with IBM. Unlike conventional,
fixed-purpose ASICs, the Cisco Silicon Packet Processor provides
application flexibility because of the 192 independent 32-bit RISC
processors that are integrated into a single chip. - the industry’s first Optical Carrier (OC)-768c/STM-256c packet
interface for building IP trunks at 40 Gbps. The multi-shelf design
would support up to 1,152 of these 40-Gbps line cards. - new Cisco IOS XR Software — a memory-protected, microkernel-based
operating system that supports process-level in-service upgrades, and
enables fully distributed processing by separating of the control,
data and management planes. The new OS modular design provides fault
containment and automatic fault recovery so that processes can be
started, stopped and upgraded. It also features self-defending network
capabilities to automatically recognize disruptive activities, such as
distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, with hardware- and
software-based infrastructure. - a service-separation architecture — the Cisco Intelligent
ServiceFlex design — that separates traffic and network operations on
a per-service or per-customer basis within the system. System
processes such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and MPLS can also be
fully distributed across the routing system - Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based Cisco Craft Works Interface
(CWI), a visual management tool that can manage single-shelf or
multi-shelf systems.
John Chambers, Cisco’s president and CEO, said the CRS-1
Carrier Routing System is not an evolution of the company’s previous
platforms but a complete break from the past because it was designed
from scratch "to scale the Internet for the next 20 years." Chambers
stated that the new CRS-1 was built to bulk up in capacity during a long
lifetime deployment during which tremendous increases in traffic loads
would occur. Based on recent traffic trends in Japan, Chamber said he
expects Internet backbones to experience 400% to 500% growth over the
next few years as the number of broadband users growths and new
applications come online.
The Cisco CRS-1 is currently in field trials and is scheduled to be available in July
2004. The starting system list price is $450,000. Service providers
testing the CRS-1 include Sprint, MCI, NTT and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Com. http://www.cisco.com
- Cisco Systems was founded in December 1984 by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, two scientists from Stanford University .
