Cisco A9K-16T/8-B network switch module

The Cisco® ASR 9000 Series Ethernet Line Cards are the latest generation of service-provider-focused Carrier Ethernet line cards from Cisco. These line cards deliver economical, scalable, highly available, line-rate Ethernet and IP/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) edge services. The Cisco ASR 9000 Series Line Cards and other Cisco ASR 9000 Series platform components are designed to provide the fundamental infrastructure for scalable Carrier Ethernet and IP/MPLS networks, supporting profitable business, residential, and mobile services.

Each Cisco ASR 9000 Series Ethernet Line Card provides hierarchical quality of service (HQoS) and simultaneous support for both Layer 2 and Layer 3 services and features, allowing operators to qualify and stock a single line card that can be deployed in any combination of Layer 2 and Layer 3 applications. This capability helps to reduce capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenses (OpEx), as well as reduce the time required to develop and deploy new services. With support for up to 512,000 queues, 32,000 interfaces, 1.3 million routes, 1 million MAC addresses, and 36,000 VPNs, the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Ethernet Line Cards set a new standard for service density, allowing operators to offer predictable, managed transport services while optimizing the use of network assets.

With their synchronization circuitry and dedicated backplane timing traces for accessing the route switch processor’s (RSP’s) Stratum-3 subsystem, the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Ethernet Line Cards provide standards-based line-interface functions for delivering and deriving transport-class network timing, enabling support of network-synchronized services and applications such as mobile backhaul and time-division multiplexing (TDM) migration. Recognizing that real-time media dominate next-generation services, Cisco has integrated media-monitoring technology into the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Ethernet Line Cards. This multimedia technology supports real-time, standards-based monitoring and statistics collection of real-time video and voice flows, delivering proactive maintenance and management of today’s media-rich services.

Addressing the advantages of consolidating IP and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) networking, G.709 with Advanced Forward Error Correction (FEC) is provided. G.709 provides visibility into the DWDM transmission system to provide rapid detection and recovery from transmission-layer and DWDM impairments. Before traffic is lost and a link outage occurs, G.709 can also be configured for proactive protection if signal degradation is detected. The Advanced FEC extends transmission-layer performance, delivering extended performance over an amplified system without the cost of regeneration or transponders.