Cisco A9K-SIP-700 network switch module

The Cisco® ASR 9000 Series SPA Interface Processor (SIP) extends the unprecedented scale and flexibility of Cisco’s flagship edge router. The Cisco ASR 9000 Series represent an exciting new paradigm in the world of routing with exceptional Layer 2 and Layer 3 scalability, carrier-class reliability, environmentally conscious design, incredible flexibility, and an enticing new price-to-performance benchmark. Cisco ASR 9000 Series routers are designed to provide true carrier-class reliability using the Cisco IOS® XR operating system, comprehensive system redundancy, and a full complement of network resiliency schemes. The Cisco ASR 9000 Series also offers service- and application-level intelligence focused on optimized video delivery and mobile aggregation. Finally, the Cisco ASR 9000 Series is designed to simplify and enhance the operational and deployment aspects of service-delivery networks.

The Cisco I-Flex design combines shared port adapters (SPAs) and SPA interface processors (SIPs), building on an extensible design that permits service prioritization for data and voice services. Enterprises and service providers customers can take advantage of improved slot economics resulting from modular port adapters that are interchangeable across Cisco routing platforms. The I-Flex design maximizes connectivity options and offers superior service intelligence through programmable interface processors.

The Cisco ASR 9000 Series SPA Interface Processor 700 (A9K-SIP-700) uses established hardware and software designs to accelerate the introduction of new, varied physical layers and help achieve a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). It is an integral part of the multiservice edge (MSE), Ethernet MSE (E-MSE) and mobile backhaul capabilities on the Cisco ASR 9000 Series. Through the use of its scalable Ethernet line cards and the A9K-SIP-700 line card, the Cisco ASR 9000 Series brings convergence to next-generation IP Radio Access Networks (IP RANs) by allowing coexistence of both Ethernet and time-division multiplexing (TDM) interfaces in the same highly scalable platform. The Cisco ASR 9000 Series MSE and E-MSE capabilities allow service providers to offer powerful business VPN services with strong service-level agreement (SLA) enforcement. Such services typically require simultaneous scale increases across multiple dimensions, for example, number of Virtual Route Forwarding (VRF) interfaces, IPv4 and IPv6 route scaling, instances of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Non-Stop Routing (NSR) interfaces, and so on. The Cisco ASR 9000 Series components, including the A9K-SIP-700, are designed for precisely such high-scale service integration.

Powered by the Cisco Flow Processor, the four-bay A9K-SIP-700 line card offers flexible deployable options for customers. The Cisco Flow Processor is a fully integrated and programmable chipset designed to unify massive parallel processing, advanced memory management, security, and sophisticated QoS mechanisms, as well as virtual service delivery and programmability. Cisco Flow Processor provides powerful hierarchical QoS, multidimensional scalability, and support for rich Layer 3 services and features. The A9K-SIP-700 supports dense serial channelization all the way from DS0 to OC48 speeds. For packet over SONET/SDH (POS) network architectures, it supports speeds up to OC192/STM64.

The Cisco ASR 9000 Series allows operators to deploy any combination of Layer 2 and Layer 3 service applications at an industry-leading price-to-performance ratio. The Cisco ASR 9000 SIP-700 is designed to complement this ability by, over time, extending the same scalability and reliability to the realm of traditional transport media such as TDM, Frame Relay, ATM, and POS, thereby reducing capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenses (OpEx), as well as reducing the time required to develop and deploy new services. It also allows service providers to continue their deployed services, keeping those revenue streams open, while simultaneously migrating to the next-generation routing platform that opens up new channels of revenue.

By seamlessly integrating within the same chassis, the SIP-700 and Ethernet line cards provide true network and device convergence – a key design goal for the Cisco ASR 9000 Series of routers. The Cisco ASR 9000 SIP-700 only utilizes one line card slot within the Cisco ASR 9000 Series chassis saving valuable line-card real estate, and can be deployed within both the Cisco ASR 9010 and 9006 without any power-zone restrictions.

Fully integrated with the Cisco ASR 9000 Series synchronization circuitry, the Cisco ASR 9000 SIP-700 line cards provide standards-based line-interface functions for delivering and deriving transport-class network timing, allowing support of network-synchronized services and applications such as mobile backhaul and TDM migration.