The Cisco ASR 9900 Route Processor 3 (ASR 9900 RP3) is the next-generation system processor for the Cisco ASR 9912 Router and ASR 9922 Router, supporting high-density 100 and 400 Gigabit Ethernet line cards and providing backward compatibility with the Cisco ASR 9000 Series third generation family of line cards. The Cisco ASR 9900 RP3 system architecture is designed to accommodate new programmable deployment models and convergence of Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, as required by today’s wireline, Data-Center-Interconnect (DCI), and mobile aggregation applications.
Key Features and Capabilities
Highly Scalable Fabric and Performance
Highly scalable fabric designed to support high 1-, 10-, 25-, 40-, 100- and 400-Gbps port densities. Provides built-in scalability for investment protection. Control of up to seven switch fabric cards offers traffic load balancing simultaneously across up to seven fabrics. Distributed-forwarding-plane architecture allows line cards to support independent forwarding for enhanced performance and scale. Memoryless switch fabric provides transparent nonblocking, low-latency packet forwarding. Virtual output queuing and arbitration offers service intelligence with prioritization of traffic (unicast and multicast). Provides efficient congestion-management mechanism and avoids problems related to head-of-line blocking. Centralized arbiter uses an efficient credit mechanism to help ensure transparent switchover with zero packet loss. IEEE 1588 support delivers timing services over the packet network efficiently and reliably. Two independent clock source connections: BITS and Synchronization Supply Unit (SSU) DTI offers redundant, centralized network synchronization support.
Storage and Management Features
Cisco IOS XR Software Integration
The Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Router delivers superior scale, service flexibility, and high availability into access and aggregation networks. It is powered by Cisco IOS XR Software, an innovative self-healing, distributed operating system designed for always-on operation. Cisco IOS XR Software supports a Software-Maintenance-Update (SMU) capability, which allows bug fixing or even small feature releasing without interrupting existing services. It also supports Field-Programmable Device (FPD) upgrades, which can be used to update Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and more, while systems are running.
Cisco ASR 9000 Series Carrier Ethernet applications include business services such as Layer 2 VPN (L2VPN) and Layer 3 VPN (L3VPN), Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), Content-Delivery Networks (CDNs), and mobile backhaul transport networks. Features supported include Ethernet Services; L2VPN; IPv4, IPv6, and L3VPN; Layer 2 and Layer 3 Multicast; IP over Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (IPoDWDM); SyncE; PTP, Ethernet Operations, Administration, and Management (EOAM) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) OAM; Layer 2 and Layer 3 Access Control Lists (ACLs); Hierarchical Quality of Service (H-QoS); Segment Routing (SR), Segment Routing v6 (SRv6), RSVP- and SR-Traffic Engineering; TI-LFA and RSVP-based FRR; EVPN; Multichassis Link Aggregation (MC-LAG); Integrated Routing and Bridging (IRB); Cisco Nonstop Forwarding (NSF) and Nonstop Routing (NSR); Point-to-Multipoint Traffic Engineering (P2MP-TE); and mLDP; Lawful Intercept; Smart Call Home (SCH).
The Cisco ASR 9000 Series Multiservice Edge (MSE) and Ethernet MSE (E-MSE) capabilities allow enterprises to offer powerful business VPN services with strong Service-Level Agreement (SLA) enforcement. Such services typically require simultaneous scale increases across multiple dimensions, for example, the number of Virtual Route Forwarding (VRF) interfaces, IPv4 and IPv6 route scaling, Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) sessions, and instances of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Cisco NSR interfaces. A Cisco ASR 9900 system configuration requiring high multiple-dimensional scale requires the Service-Edge (SE) optimized route processor model to support the increased system scale.
Timing Synchronization
Timing synchronization is an integral part of traditional circuit-based networks, so the availability of equivalent functions in next-generation Ethernet-based architectures has quickly become a critical requirement. The Cisco ASR 9900 chassis have GPS, DTI, and BITS connections on the route processor, along with SyncE and PTP support natively on the line cards, which gives mobile providers ample options for time and frequency synchronization. Additionally, the Cisco ASR 9900 Route Processor supplies centralized clocking functions throughout the system, providing consolidated timing distribution and recovery to and from the line cards.
The Cisco ASR 9900 RP3 supports the Cisco ASR 9912 and Cisco ASR 9922 chassis, therefore providing common sparing. Both Cisco ASR 9922 and ASR 9912 systems are designed to the same high standards of performance and reliability. They feature the same power and thermal innovations, and they can share route processors, line cards, Power Entry Modules (PEMs), and power supplies, for greater flexibility in your network planning.