New Cisco Router Series for Service Providers and Internet of Things
New Cisco Router Series for Service Providers and Internet of Things by UCStrategies Staff
The increase in Internet traffic is being pushed by mobile devices, video and cloud applications, and machine-to-machine communications. To address this, Cisco has announced it will release a new series of routers in order to help service providers scale their networks.
The new router series has been called the Cisco Network Convergence System (NSC), and builds a network fabric which Cisco notes will strengthen service provider networks by providing the bandwidth and scalability required to support jumps in traffic. Furthermore, NCS is also able to aide service providers by preparing their networks for the burgeoning Internet of Everything, which according to Cisco, is making trillions of programmable events or "conversations" between people, applications and devices.
The senior vice president and general manager of the Service Provider Networking Group at Cisco, Surya Panditi, said: “If you think about ultra HD video, for example, or obviously cloud, which all of our customers are doing… and then machine-to-machine is also adding to the kind of scale that's needed, and then mobility. In order to have these supported, you need to evolve the programmable networks.”
Earlier this week, Cisco announced new physical security products targeting the Internet of Everything, and the NCS marks the company’s second investment in that same arena.
The NCS 6000, NCS 4000 and NCS 2000 are all part of the NCS family, and they work with Cisco’s Carrier Routing System (CSR) and Aggregation Services Router (ASR) families in order to provide a network overlay fabric which can operate as the “central nervous system” to the service provider network. This will ensure that it can manage and move network and computer resources – in realtime – to where they are needed.
IP and optical networks are also brought together through the NCS, and this is able to integrate with Cisco's Unified Computing System converged infrastructure offering. The company notes that if system scale is exceeded in one part of the network, NCS is able to move control plane functions onto UCS servers.
Additionally, the company stated that the total cost of ownership for service providers can be lowered by up to 45 percent when NCS is deployed as part of the Cisco ONE Service Provider Architecture.
The nPower X1 integrated network processor is key to the NCS family, and this in particular is a custom piece of Cisco silicon which accommodates 4 billion transistors on a single chip. This processor can also be found in the company’s CRS-X router; it has a throughput speed of 400 Gbps, and integrates packet processing, traffic management and input/ output capabilities onto one piece of silicon.
nPower X1 is the first generation chip within the nPower family. The NCS 6000 has the industry’s first 1-Tbps line card, and is shipping now, as is the NCS 2000. The NCS 4000, which supports 400 Gpbs per slot, will be ready for distribution early next year.
According to Cisco, a handful of service providers such as Australia-based Telstra, have already deployed NCS platforms. (CY) Link