New QoS policy management functionality added for Today's New World networks

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 14, 2000 - Cisco Systems Inc., the leader in networking for the Internet, today announced the availability of QoS Policy Manager (QPM) 2.0, giving customers a host of new quality of service (QoS ) policy management capabilities making large-scale QoS deployments easier and more reliable. With QPM 2.0, customers also have greater service-level control for converged voice, video, and data networks, and support of a broad range of new devices and device software.

"We are impressed that Cisco has added new large-scale deployment features in QPM 2.0," said Ahmad Sidani, network manager, First American Corporation. "For demanding large-scale environments, these new capabilities will enable easier control of network resources and ensure timely delivery of critical information.

Enhanced QoS Policy Management Functionality for Large Enterprises

QPM 2.0 addresses the increasingly complex QoS policy management requirements for large enterprises. QPM 2.0 now has greater reliability through device configuration change detection and correction, and the ability to conveniently label and group devices, interfaces and VLANs. Network administrators have more deployment flexibility and control through rollback to previous policy sets and re-deploying them in the network, as well as uploading existing QoS configurations on devices. Customers can also extend traffic management by selectively blocking packets on a per port basis, and proactively deny traffic flows guaranteed levels of service enabling improved network resource utilization. With expanded support for more than 20 different Cisco devices, including the Catalyst 4000 family, Cisco IOS software, and Catalyst OS operating system, QPM 2.0 supports QoS management functionality for a wide variety of network infrastructures.

New QoS Management Support for AVVID

Extending Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video, and Integrated Data) support, QPM 2.0 now includes a broad range of features specifically for Voice over IP (VoIP) and allows customers to quickly and easily configure QoS for their converged networks. QPM 2.0 is able to provide comprehensive QoS management for AVVID-enabled networks by supporting various QoS mechanisms, including Low Latency Queuing (LLQ), which combines Class-Based Weighted Queuing (CBWFQ) with a strict priority queue, IP real-time transport protocol (RTP) priority, Link Fragmentation and Interleave (LFI), frame relay fragmentation (FRF), traffic shaping, and header compression (cRTP).

QPM 2.0 also allows customers to define and deploy QoS policies that deliver priority services for real-time traffic generated by voice gateways, IP phones and video. It also enables differentiated services for traffic originating from call manager servers, telephony application servers, and video content servers. Through centralized policy control and automated policy deployment, QPM 2.0 is an effective QoS management solution for successful network congestion management and guaranteed converged network performance.

QPM 2.0 Support for Content Networking

Now with QPM 2.0, customers have new functionality for deploying a content-aware network infrastructure. Supporting NBAR (Network Based Application Recognition), QPM provides enhanced QoS management through the filtering of new protocols, coloring, and rate limiting. This enables customers to have additional policy configuration and application classification capabilities for comprehensive content networking infrastructure management.

Comprehensive Service Level Management

The combination of QPM 2.0 and the recently announced CiscoWorks2000 Service Management Solution (SMS), gives customers a powerful tool set for network administrators requiring QoS policy management and advanced network service level monitoring. Customers can use QPM 2.0 to classify network-edge traffic into various service levels, provision end-to-end service levels on network routers and switches, and enable SMS to monitor those service levels defined by QPM 2.0. Optimal network performance can be achieved by using QPM and SMS as a comprehensive QoS management solution.

"With enterprise networks more business-critical than ever, implementing a QoS architecture is not only imperative for efficient network performance, but optimal business performance," said Ron Lifton, product manager, Cisco Systems. "QPM 2.0 allows provisioning of services, such as strict priority for voice traffic in Cisco AVVID networks, and provides our customers with new policy management capabilities that utilize extensive QoS mechanisms on Cisco switches and routers."

Pricing and Availability

QoS Policy Manager 2.0 is available now for $9995 USD.