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Today’s Internet users are a demanding bunch. With telecommuting and mobile workers on the rise, and global IP bandwidth demand growing at a rapid pace, fueled by video and other bandwidth intensive Web 2.0 applications, Cisco (News - Alert) has unveiled a new product that it hopes will enable service providers and enterprise edge network managers to handle the increased flood of traffic.

 

Cisco has announced the introduction of a brand-new series of Aggregation Services Routers. The ASR 1000 Series features software virtualization to enable “instant-on” provisioning and simultaneous use of a variety of useful services, including firewall, IPSec VPNs, deep-packet inspection (DPI), and session border control (SBC) functionality. The idea is that ISPs, universities and enterprise customers would be able to avoid the need to deploy multiple purpose-built appliances alongside a router, with the concomitant savings in capital expenditures and operational costs. The benefits include a green angle as well, since deploying fewer boxes consumes less power and reduces users’ carbon footprints.

 

The new Cisco ASR 1000 Series is driven by the company’s QuantumFlow Processor (News - Alert) (QFP), which was unveiled late last month. The fully integrated and programmable networking chipset consists of 40 cores on a single chip and can perform up to 160 simultaneous processes.

 

In addition, The ASR 1000 Series features IOS XE software, a virtualized IOS implementation optimized for compact routers at the edge to deliver in-service software upgrades and software redundancy in a form factor much smaller than previously possible.

 

Cisco reportedly invested $250 million over more than five years in the research and development of the new router offering. This figure includes $100 million invested in the Cisco Quantum Flow Processor.

 

The ASR 1000 combines multiple service features into a single router platform, and simplifies network design, allowing a single router to be used in various hardware deployments, providing different services based on software enablement.

 

According to the announcement Cisco is hailing the following benefits for its service provider and enterprise customers:

 

 

 

“With respect to flexibility in the network, the Cisco ASR 1000 is unsurpassed, incorporating new technologies to support rapid business innovation, without having to rethink network platform decisions,” said Pankaj Patel, senior vice president and general manager of the Cisco Service Provider Technology Group. “Any comparable configuration would not only cost much more, but require more rack space, consume more power, and require additional blades or network appliances in order to equal the capabilities that are already integrated into this compact, multi-purpose router.”

 

The Cisco ASR 1000 series will be generally available in April 2008 in 2, 4 and 6 rack unit sizes, with pricing starting at $35,000.

 

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