Internet Strikes Gold!
- More information about the Cisco 12000 Series
- Internet2 Web Site
- More information on Cisco's Advanced Internet Initiatives and Internet 2
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- November 17, 1998 -- Cisco Systems, Inc. Thursday marked the sale of 1,000 units of the Cisco 12000 gigabit switch router (GSR) in a ceremony by donating a gold-painted Cisco 12000 gigabit switch router to Abilene, an initiative led by the Internet2 project to develop and deploy the fastest and most advanced research and education network in the world.
Service providers embraced the 12000 GSR immediately after Cisco introduced the network backbone router a year ago, and have deployed it in some of the largest networks in the world including Qwest, Sprint, Frontier Global Center, Enron Communications, Canarie, Verio, GTE Internetworking and AOL's TeraPoP.
"The significance of this milestone goes beyond the sale of 1,000 units of a successful product," said Graeme Fraser, general manager of the Optical Internetworking Business Unit. "Service providers now are building an optical internetworking infrastructure based on the GSR 12000 series that will form the foundation of the evolving Internet economy."
The12000 GSR is a critical building block in Cisco's vision of the communications new world, where service providers are migrating to packet-driven techniques to meet the explosive growth in data communications. If the first 1,000 units of the 12000 GSR were deployed to full capacity, they would create a network with 10 times the bandwidth of today's long-distance public telephone network with much lower cost and far more performance than traditional Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) architectures.
The university-led Internet2 project is a partnership of higher education, government and information technology industry leaders working together to accelerate the development of advanced computer networks. Cisco, the initial corporate partner of the Internet2 project, has committed more than $15 million to participating universities, including dedicated management and engineering resources to the initiative.
The GSR series of switch routers consists of the Cisco 12008 and 12012 and are the primary building blocks in Cisco's optical internetworking strategy, where Cisco is working with companies like CIENA to develop the technology and techniques to carry IP directly over the optical layer.
The Cisco 12008 provides eight slots and supports network sites with OC-3/STM-1, OC-12/STM-4 or OC-48/STM-16 ports.
The Cisco 12012 provides 12 slots and supports core network sites where OC-3/STM-1 and OC-12/STM-4 interfaces and the highest port density are required. It can scale to support up to 11 OC-48/STM-16 ports.
About Internet2
The Internet2 project is being led by 130 leading U.S. universities, working with industry and government, to enable and facilitate the advanced network applications necessary to meet emerging needs in higher education. Internet2 participants are developing the broadband applications, engineering and network management tools for research and education.The Abilene project is developing and deploying the most advanced research and education network in the world, providing a high-performance backbone to support the efforts of universities participating in the Internet2 project.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is theworldwide leader in networking for the Internet.Cisco, Cisco Systems and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.
