(COMTEX) B: Cisco Has Terabit Router
Jun 11, 1999 (Tech Web - CMP via COMTEX) -- Data Communications has
learned at Supercomm '99 that Cisco is building a terabit router
designed as the successor to its GSR 12000 product.
That could be good news for both service providers and Internet
end-users alike: Cisco's 7000 and 12000 series routers are widely held
to be responsible for some of the lackluster performance of the Net.
Cisco confirmed the existence of the product -- code-named the 12000+
-- but wouldn't provide further details.
"It's not something that is publicly announced," said Kulvinder (Kelly)
Ahuja, product line manager for optical internetworking at Cisco.
Competitors aren't as tight-lipped. "My understanding is that it will
have 200 Gbits/s of capacity," said Zbigniew Opalka, senior vice
president of engineering at Nexabit Networks Inc., a terabit router
vendor.
That's more than seven times the capacity of Cisco's 12000 platform,
which tops out at 27.5 Gbits/s. And it would give Cisco enough muscle
to compete head-to-head with vendors such as Avici Systems Inc.,
Nexabit, and Pluris Inc., all of which currently claim to have the lead
in performance.
Observers think that Cisco will announce the 12000+ at this year's
Telecom 99 show in Geneva, and ship it next year. The hardware will
benefit from a new, slimmed-down carrier-class version of IOS that
Cisco is working on, called IOSNG (IOS Next Generation). Competitors
said the new software will be key.
"The question is not whether Cisco can build a bigger router, but
whether they can get it to run at wire-speed," said John M. Shaw, vice
president of marketing at terabit router vendor Netcore Systems Inc.
"Software is their biggest problem."
Not everyone at Supercomm '99 is convinced the world needs another
terabit router. One show attendee referred to the products from Avici,
Nexabit, and Pluris as "science experiments".
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Copyright (C) 1999 CMP Media Inc.
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