Cisco upgrades ASR 9000 edge router for the 5G era

Cisco announced a major upgrade to its ASR 9000 edge routing platform for the 5G era.

The ASR 9000 was first introduced ten years ago and has since been deployed by more than 4500 service provider, enterprise and public sector customers around the world. Cisco says there are 93,000 ASR 9000 models deployed. The upgrade, which represents the fourth iteration of the platform, is based on new custom ASICs powering high-density 100GE line cards and new automation software. The ASR 9000’s slot capacity has been increased up to 3.2Tbps.

The upgrade includes new 32-port, 16-port, and 8-port 100GE line cards. These offer the capability to power down unused capacity, reducing power consumption down to 0.5W per gigabit.

With the upgrade, Cisco is also pushing ahead with its network-wide pay-as-you-grow license pooling model. This allow ports on the new-generation line cards to be activated on-demand, within deployed or new ASR 9000 chassis.

The new Cisco IOS XR software, enables the ASR 9000 to support the Cisco Crosswork Network Automation portfolio, which is a closed-loop, mass-scale automation solution that embraces multi-vendor networks.

“With these advancements to the Cisco ASR platform, we are simplifying, automating and converging our networking technology for the 5G and multicloud era,” said Sumeet Arora, senior vice president of engineering, Service Provider Network Systems, Cisco. “We are committed to helping our customers deliver better experiences for their customers, enabling them to optimize the capex spend with an easy roadmap for network planning purchasing and optimization.”