Table of Contents

Product Overview
Key Features and Benefits
Specifications
Ordering Information

Cisco BPX 8600 Series — Wide-Area Switches

Product Overview

The Cisco BPX 8600 series is standards-based ATM switch with advanced IP and ATM capabilities. Designed to meet the demanding, high-traffic needs of a public service provider or large private enterprise, the BPX switch delivers high-performance ATM switching, multiservice adaptation and aggregation for all types of user traffic. Proven in the worlds largest ATM and Frame Relay networks, the BPX 8600 enables service providers and large enterprises to meet skyrocketing network demands.

The Cisco BPX 8600 series switch offers up to 20 Gbps of high-throughput switching for multiple traffic types data, voice, and vide— and supports a wide range of interfaces, from Frame Relay to full broadband subscriber interfaces, up to 622 Mbps. You can offer multiple services for LAN, X.25, SNA, IP, Frame Relay, and ATM traffic from a single BPX platform. The Cisco BPX 8600 series supports multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) today, and this functionality can be easily added to any BPX switch already installed in the field

The Cisco BPX 8600 series switch provides 800/1600 Mbps of dedicated bandwidth for each of 12 available interface slots, allowing you to expand capacity and maintain high performance. Narrowband interfaces are provisioned on separate shelves tenable full use of the BPX switch`s capacity to deliver narrowband and broadband services.

The Cisco BPX 8600 series offers ATM switching and integrates user services over broadband and narrowband ATM trunks. With 20 Gbps of high-throughput, low-latency switching, service providers can deliver innovative, revenue-generating data, voice, video, and Internet services. For large enterprises, the Cisco BPX 8600 series combines LAN, SNA, voice, and other types of traffic over a single WAN. The BPX switch also enables organizations to migrate to the next generation of switched internetworks, while complementing existing investments in routers and Frame Relay switches.

Key Features and Benefits

The Cisco BPX 8600 series switch includes the following features:

• Multishelf architecture

  The Cisco BPX 8600 series switch integrates narrowband and broadband services in a single, highly reliable platform using a multishelf architecture. The modular, multishelf architecture allows users to incrementally expand the capacity of the system as needed and fully utilize the switch fabric.

  The BPX broadband shelf supports up to 20 Gbps of switching capacity in a 15-slot chassis. The broadband shelf includes a crosspoint switching fabric that supports broadband interfaces and switches ATM cells over broadband network trunks. An edge concentrator shelf supports narrowband interfaces, adapting non-ATM traffic into 53-byte ATM cells and concentrating the traffic for high-speed switching by the broadband shelf.

  By integrating narrowband and broadband interfaces on a single platform, service providers can fully utilize the node capacity, incrementally expand capacity as needed, and cost-effectively provide services to an almost unlimited number of subscribers.

• Virtual Switch Interface (VSI) The VSI allows controllers to set-up and tear down virtual circuit converters through the BPX independent of the control protocol (PNNI, MPLS, SS7) and independent of whether the controller is internal or external to the chassis. Thus, the VSI allows multiple controllers to control the BPX, and the controllers are optimized for the service to be delivered. The VSI manages the resource allocation so the controllers are independent and each service receives the QoS required.

• Advanced switching capabilities

  The Cisco BPX 8600 series feature set includes intelligent call processing for Frame Relay and ATM switched virtual circuits (SVCs). The SVC functionality is implemented in a semi-distributed model that can be easily enhanced and is highly scalable as network size increases. The call processing and routing functions are provided in a central processor, while switching functions are performed in the BPX interface modules. This software model provides a robust call processing system with a firewall between PVC and SVC services, extensibility for enhanced call processing features, and ease of scalability as SVC capacity and performance demands change. The central processor includes a large data storage capacity necessary for the collection of statistics and call records for accounting, billing, and performance management. Redundancy is provided across all Cisco BPX 8600 series components for the highest level of availability.

• Reliability

  The Cisco BPX 8600 series switch is designed for the highest levels of reliability in mission-critical enterprise networks and demanding service provider environments. You can configure every system component for 100 percent redundancy, and you can remove and reinsert all BPX modules while the system is under power without affecting the performance of other modules or impacting service delivery. In addition, Automatic Routing Management reroutes virtual circuits if a trunk fails. Software upgrades are performed in the background, and the conversion to a new software release is achieved without interruption of traffic or loss of data. All broadband interfaces can be configured for 1:1 redundancy, and narrowband modules can be configured for 1:n redundancy.

• Scalability

  With high port density, each Cisco BPX 8600 series switch supports numbers of users ranging from hundreds to hundreds of thousands, while lowering the cost per subscriber. Capacity can be added as demand requires, giving the Cisco BPX 8600 series switch unmatched scalability to meet the demands of rapidly increasing numbers of subscribers and deployment of multiple services such as ATM, Frame Relay, Internet, and video. With a capacity of up to 20 Gbps, BPX 8600 switch-based networks deliver the highest levels of performance for large files, high traffic volumes, and delay-sensitive voice and video. Support for interface speeds up to OC-12/STM-4 (622 Mbps) enables organizations to deliver multiple, high-quality services ranging from transparent LAN services and virtual private network services to video and LAN-to-ATM access capabilities.

• High service availability and performance

  The Cisco BPX 8600 series switch is a proven switching solution, and is used in the world`s largest public ATM and Frame Relay networks. Robust, redundant architecture ensures high service availability, allowing service providers to provide uninterrupted service to millions of subscribers worldwide. The breadth of interface options, advanced traffic management capabilities, and sophisticated built-in network management features maximize application performance. High throughput without data loss lets service providers guarantee quality of service and application performance.

• Stratm technology

  The Cisco BPX 8600 series switch incorporates Stratm technology implemented in custom silicon application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Stratm technology on the Cisco BPX 8600 series switch is embodied in the broadband switch modules (BXM). Features including traffic management, per-virtual-circuit queuing, class of service (CoS) management, and multicast reside on each BPX card.

  Stratm technology distributes advanced ATM capabilities throughout the switch modules, providing unmatched port densities, support for hundreds of thousands of connections, and new functionality.

  Stratm technology lowers the cost per user by supporting higher-density ports and connections per card slot. The BPX switch with Stratm technology provides a full virtual source/virtual destination (VS/VD) implementation of the ATM Forum`s Traffic Management Specification V.4.0, as well as supporting explicit rate marking and explicit forward congestion indication (EFCI) tagging.

Specifications

• Automatic Routing Management

  Formerly AutoRoute. Cisco WAN switches use a connection-oriented mechanism to provide connectivity across the network. The switches perform a Connection Admission Control (CAC) function on all types of connection in the network. Distributed network intelligence enables the CAC function to automatically route and reroute connections over optimal paths while guaranteeing the required QoS.

• Advanced CoS Management

  Formerly FairShare and OptiClass. Class-of-service management is essential of delivering the required QoS tall applications. Cisco switches contain per-virtual -circuit (VC) queuing, per-VC-rate scheduling, multiple class-of-service queuing, and egress queuing. This enables managers to refine connections to meet specific application needs.

• Optimized Bandwidth Management

  Cisco wide-area switches ensure fair and cost-efficient bandwidth utilization using various techniques. Available bit-rate (ABR) and ForeSight are used for ATM and Frame Relay traffic. ABR is a standards-based ATM traffic management mechanism, and ForeSight is Cisco`s implementation that mirrors ABR capabilities for Frame Relay traffic. ABR and ForeSight optimize real-time traffic performance and throughput and minimize data loss. Bandwidth management for voice is achieved through the use of standards-based compression and silence suppression mechanisms for circuit data services.

• Dynamic Buffer Management

  Cisco`s Frame Relay and ATM service module are equipped with large buffers and a patented dynamic buffer management scheme for allocating and scaling them on a per-VC basis to traffic entering or leaving a node. The switch dynamically assigns buffers to individual virtual circuits based upon the amount of traffic present and service level agreements. This deep pool of available buffers readily accommodates large bursts of traffic in the node.

• StrataSphere network management

  StrataView Plus is an SNMP-based multiprotocol management environment designed specifically for ATM WANs. It provides integrated service management and process automation to simplify management of even the most complex networks. StrataView Plus lets you easily monitor usage, provision connections, prototype services, optimize traffic flow, model network design, and track network statistics.See the "Cisco StrataView Plus ATM Network Management" chapter for additional information on StrataView Plus.

Ordering Information

Posted: Wed Sep 27 05:15:20 PDT 2000
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