Cisco Announces Intelligent Processor Engine for the WAN Edge

Cisco Systems introduced a new Network Processing Engine for handling IP/MPLS services on its Cisco 7300 routers, which can be deployed by enterprise customers as an Internet gateway application, or used by service providers as a high-end customer-premise-equipment (CPE) router for managed service offerings. The Cisco 7304 NPE-G100 processor supports advanced IP features, including multicast; Any Transport over MPLS (AToM); and Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF)-Select, which enables network operators to provide the appearance of multiple network topologies on a single interface. It also supports IPv6 and network-based application recognition (NBAR) services that allow customers to support a variety of connection types tightly coupled with advanced packet inspection for intelligent networking. Additionally, the NPE-G100 offers three built-in 10/100/1000-Mbps Ethernet ports (copper or optical). The Cisco 7304 router with the NPE-G100 Network Processing Engine will be available in May and list priced at $22,000.
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