Cisco 7500 Series Boosts Routing Muscle for Large, Evolving Corporate Networks

Delivers on company's CiscoFusion architecture

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 28, 1995 - Cisco Systems today announced the Cisco7500 series, a new line of high-end multiprotocol routers that provide anunmatched level of stability, security and control for large, evolvingcorporate networks. As part of this introduction, the company alsoannounced major enhancements to existing high-end routers in its Cisco7000 family.

The new Cisco 7500 router series extends the capabilities of the Cisco 7000family and incorporates distributed switching functions. This builds onthe company's CiscoFusion architecture anddelivers thepower to support emerging high-bandwidth applications and environments.

"New network designs involving LAN switching and ATM , andemergingapplications such as networked multimedia , are requiringrouters to providenew functionality and higher performance," said Richard Palmer, Cisco'sdirector of marketing for high-end routing products. "The Cisco 7500series, running Cisco Internetwork OperatingSystem (Cisco IOS)software, provides users with the routing capabilities that are essentialin building reliable and scalable networks in these environments."

Cisco's new 7500 series significantly extends the capabilities of the Cisco7000 family through increased performance, availability and port density.The new routers expand bandwidth capacity by four times, provide redundancyfor route/switch processing and increase maximum port density by 100percent.

Greater Stability, Security and Control in Enterprise Networks

With its increased performance and reliability, the Cisco 7500 becomes thepremier platform for running the industry's leading internetworkingsoftware, Cisco IOS. Cisco IOS software enables users to manage access tonetwork resources, allocate quality of service among applications, andoffload value-added functions such as protocol conversion or dataencryption from other devices. Cisco 7500 series routers and Cisco IOSsoftware give enterprise and service provider organizations a reliable,highly flexible networking infrastructure to meet mission-criticalnetworking requirements in several environments.

Optimized for Multiple Environments

The Cisco 7500 series' distributed switching functions enable LAN managersto provide the high performance routing necessary to support networks usingATM, multilayer LAN switching and virtual LAN technologies. Thisdeliverson the company's CiscoFusion architecture, a blueprint for scalable,distributed internetworks that "fuse" the best of routing and switching.With CiscoFusion, organizations can build switched LAN internetworkspowerful enough to support emerging high-bandwidth applications whilemaintaining the stability, security and control provided by network-layerrouting.

Routers in the new series offer the industry's broadest support ofhigh-speed ATM and WAN interfaces, which allows customers in the WANenvironment to access multiple types of carrier service offerings as theymigrate from Time-Division Multiplexed (TDM) backbones to ATM backbones.In addition, the Cisco 7500 series can strategically consolidate IBM datacenter communications when coupled with Cisco IOS software and the CiscoChannel Interface Processor (CIP). With TCP/IP offload, SNA and APPN support, the CIP card enables the integration of SNA, NetBIOS, and TCP/IP networks into a single network. This reduces costs and gives users morecontrol over traffic to and from the mainframe.

Cisco's 7500 series will give Internet service providers the higherperformance, reliability and security they need to handle exponentialgrowth and new applications. Currently, Cisco routers carry more than 80percent of Internet backbone traffic, according to the Yankee Group.

Powerful Combination of...

Performance
Cisco's 7500 series offers unequaled performance, with scalable system bandwidth exceeding two gigabits per second (Gbps). This performance is achieved through a new, distributed multiprocessor architecture consisting of three elements:
- the integrated Route/Switch Processor (RSP),
- the new Versatile Interface Processor (VIP) card and
- Cisco's high-speed CyBus.
With the new, high-speed CyBus, Cisco 7500 routers provide up to 2.1 Gbps of bandwidth, offering four times the capacity of the Cisco 7000's single CxBus.
The Versatile Interface Processor (VIP) is the first router interface card to provide intelligent multilayer switching and run Cisco IOS software. Each VIP card in a Cisco 7500 series router can make local switching decisions, based on routing information received from the RSP, and independently perform other Cisco IOS functions.
The Cisco 7500 Route/Switch Processor boosts performance of the route and switch processing functions by utilizing a high-speed RISC engine and custom ASICs.
Availability
In dual-RSP configurations, the Cisco 7500 can take advantage of memory and switching functions in the secondary RSP, which also can take over if the primary RSP goes off-line. This, together with the dual power supplies offered on 7500 series models, maximizes applications and system availability.
Density
The Cisco 7500 series includes three new models. The Cisco 7505 provides five chassis slots and 1 Gbps of bandwidth with one Route/Switch Processor (RSP) and one power supply. The Cisco 7507 and Cisco 7513, with seven and 13 slots respectively, provide more than 2 Gbps of bandwidth and optionally can be equipped with dual RSPs and power supplies.
All models accommodate the full range of interface processors already supported by the Cisco 7000 series: Ethernet, Token Ring, Fast Ethernet, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), serial, High-Speed Serial Interface (HSSI), ATM, channelized E1/T1, and IBM channel-attachment.

Existing Cisco 7000 Family Enhanced

The new Versatile Interface Processors developed for the Cisco 7500 seriesalso can be installed in Cisco's existing high-end routers, the Cisco 7000and Cisco 7010, providing increased port density, mixed media options andmore packet memory. This significantly enhances the Cisco 7000 family andits ability to support increasing traffic in wide area networkapplications.

"Because Cisco 7000 interface processor cards are forward-compatible withthe Cisco 7500, customers can re-deploy existing IPs to the Cisco 7500 togain its higher aggregate route/switch processing performance," Palmersaid. "At the same time, Cisco 7000 users can take advantage of the higherport densities and mixed media configurations supported by the newVersatile Interface Processor cards, which can be operated in the Cisco7000."

Availability

Cisco 7500 series availability is as follows:

  ----------------------------------------------------  PRODUCT                           AVAILABILITY  ====================================================  Cisco 7505 base system            Immediate  Cisco 7507 base system            Immediate  Cisco 7513 base system            Immediate  Versatile Interface Processors    4 Ethernet/1 Fast Ethernet      4th Quarter 1995    2 Fast Ethernet                 4th Quarter 1995    1 Fast Ethernet                 4th Quarter 1995    4 Ethernet/4 Serial             1st Quarter 1996  ----------------------------------------------------

Port adapters supporting ATM, FDDI, HSSI, ISDN Basic Rate Interface (BRI)and Primary Rate Interface (PRI), data compression and encryption will beavailable in 1996.

Today, Cisco Systems also announced new pricing associated with existingmodels in the Cisco 7000 family. (Please contact your local Cisco salesoffice or Cisco-authorized distributor for complete information.

Cisco Systems, Inc. is the leading global supplier of enterprisenetworks,including routers, LAN and ATM switches, dial-up access servers and networkmanagement software. These products, integrated by Cisco's InternetworkOperating System (Cisco IOS) link geographically dispersedLANs,WANs and IBM networks. Cisco is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and inthe U.S. is traded under the NASDAQ symbol CSCO.

Posted: Aug 28 08:51:44 1995