MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan. 19, 1993 -- Cisco Systems has unveiled a new router platform designed to perform routing functions at the highest speeds available today and to serve as the foundation for tomorrow's high-performance technologies, including silicon packet switching and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology.

The Cisco 7000 internetwork router has the "highest aggregate IP forwarding rate ever measured" at Harvard University's Network Device Test Lab, according to Scott Bradner, lab director.*

The Cisco 7000 complements Cisco's AGS+ router, which the company will continue to support and enhance (see accompanying release), but offers measured 110,000-packet-per-second performance -- 50 percent greater than the AGS+ or competing new- generation routers. It also supports more network interfaces and critical reliability, availability and serviceability features, including optional dual power systems and on-line insertion and removal ("hot swapping") of interface processors.

In 1993 and 1994 the Cisco 7000 family, while remaining fully software-compatible with existing Cisco platforms, will double its performance through the use of silicon-switching technology, and will support such advanced interfaces as ISDN Primary Rate and IBM channel. It also will interface to ATM switches, allowing it to form a router cluster and offer aggregate system performance in excess of one million packets per second.

Mission-Critical Networks Proliferating

Brent Bilger, director of platform marketing, said, "Today's international multiprotocol networks are enterprise-wide data utilities that carry such vital corporate information as factory- floor operations data or stock transactions. As the cornerstones of such networks, routers must ensure that this information be available, at the lowest possible cost, whenever users need it.

"With its performance, high-availability features and newly designed set of interfaces, the Cisco 7000 sets a new standard for internetworking in the largest, most critical networks. It also can perform the secondary function of high-end entry services routing for such networks, saving money, maintenance time, and valuable computer room real estate."

Centralized Switching Architecture for Performance, Scalability

Housed in a standalone or rack-mountable chassis, the Cisco 7000 uses a loosely coupled multiprocessing architecture in which a switch processor handles real-time operations, forwarding traffic between multiple interface processors. A separate route processor handles nonreal-time tasks, sending and receiving routing protocol updates, performing routing calculations, and monitoring interface status.

"The resource contention scheme used by most router vendors generates heavy interprocessor communication and arbitration, creating bottlenecks that limit aggregate performance," Bilger said. "Our centralized autonomous switching approach eliminates these factors, allowing performance that is proportional to the power of the switch processor."

The Cisco 7000 employs a TRI-Bus (TM) design. System overhead and interprocessor communication are handled by the first two buses, leaving the data bus -- a 533-Mbps synchronous, split- transaction switching bus -- free for passing switched data between interfaces. The result is a data highway that is always available for transmission of real-time, mission-critical data.

Dual Power Systems Maximize Network Availability

The Cisco 7000 is the company's first router to offer full current-sharing backup power systems, allowing uninterrupted operation if one system fails. Either of the two 700-watt universal power supply systems -- which support voltages of 100- 240 volts and frequencies of 50-60 Hz -- can be hot-swapped with the system running.

With no cover to remove, the Cisco 7000 offers open single- side access to all modules for easy servicing. Its backplane has no active components to cause reliability problems.

Of seven available chassis slots, two are occupied by the route and switch processors, and five can accept a variety of interface processors to link up to 30 Ethernets, five FDDI rings, 20 token rings, 40 WAN serial ports, or any media combination. The interfaces, like the power systems, can be hot-swapped.

Interface processors available for the Cisco 7000 are:

• Ethernet interface processor, with two, four or six ports.

• Token ring interface processor, with two or four ports. This card uses IBM's chipset and an enhanced interface driver, jointly developed by Cisco and IBM, to offer the industry's highest aggregate performance, greater than 100,000 pps.

• FDDI interface processor, with one port, which supports routing, multiple bridging technologies (translational, transparent, encapsulation and remote source-route bridging), as well as both single- and multimode operation.

• Fast serial interface processor, designed specifically for the Cisco 7000, with four or eight full-duplex ports running T1 at "wire speed" of 8 Mbps. RS-232, V.35, X.21 or RS-449 physical interfaces can be selected.

• HSSI interface processor, with a single port supporting serial communication at up to 52 Mbps, for the efficient LAN-WAN connection needed by distributed processing and database systems.

Flash memory, a standard feature on the Cisco 7000, allows for easier, more reliable software upgrades than floppy disks, with less maintenance and support overhead than PROM chip replacement. Network administrators can distribute new system software releases or updated microcode to all routers within a network from a central location, without physically accessing the remote units. Under development is a Flash "credit card" that will facilitate the same procedure between networks.

Cisco 7000 Futures: Increased System Performance, High- Performance Interfaces

The Cisco 7000 is the base for future technologies to be implemented over the next few years. Performance will approximately double through the use of silicon packet switching (i.e., packet switching implemented in custom hardware rather than in software). This capability will be made available as an optional field upgrade to the Cisco 7000.

Advanced modules to be announced during this time include an ISDN Primary Rate Interface (PRI) and an IBM channel interface. The latter will eliminate the need for host gateways and front-end processors when used with standard protocols such as TCP/IP in Cisco-based internets.

In the ATM arena, the Cisco 7000 will initially support an external ATM DSU, for ATM WAN connectivity. Later it will support a native ATM interface, with TAXI (100-Mbps) and SONET (150-Mbps) rate compatibility. In 1994, Cisco 7000s will form part of a "routing cluster" that can act as a high-speed silicon cell switch for up to 240 Ethernets, 150 token rings, 24 FDDI rings or 800 T1 lines, while integrating such critical routing functions as bandwidth allocation and prioritization, security, load balancing and filtering.

The Cisco 7000 offers the same comprehensive media and protocol capability as all other Cisco routers, supporting more than 15 LAN and WAN protocols via dynamic routing and multiple bridging techniques.

Pricing/Availability

Available beginning in February, the Cisco 7000 is priced at $19,990 with route and switch processors. Interface processors are priced from $6,500 to $22,000.

Cisco Systems, Inc., is the leading worldwide supplier of high-performance, multimedia and multiprotocol internetworking products, including routers, bridges, communication servers and network management software. Cisco technology can be used to build enterprise-wide networks linking an unlimited number of geographically dispersed LANs, WANs and IBM SNA internetworks. In the United States, Cisco is traded over the counter under the NASDAQ symbol CSCO.

*Tested at the Harvard Network Device Test Lab during December 1992, the Cisco 7000 performed at an aggregate IP forwarding rate of more than 110,000 64-byte packets per second using a 10- Ethernet to 10-Ethernet test setup. The forwarding data rate observed in the same tests was over 97.7 megabits per second out of the offered load of 98.6 megabits per second using 1518-byte Ethernet packets. (Source: Scott Bradner, lab director)