The Cisco® Interface Flexibility (I-Flex) design combines shared port adapters (SPAs) and SPA interface processors (SIPs), taking advantage of an extensible design that facilitates service prioritization for voice, video, and data services. SPAs provide the physical interfaces for router connectivity ranging from copper, Channelized, Packet over SONET/SDH (PoS), ATM, and Ethernet. The Cisco ASR 1000 Series SIP provides the physical termination for the SPAs and accepts up to four half-height and two full-height Cisco SPAs. Enterprise and service provider customers can take advantage of improved slot economics resulting from modular port adapters that are interchangeable across Cisco routing platforms. The I-Flex design maximizes connectivity options and offers powerful service intelligence through programmable interface processors that deliver line-rate performance. I-Flex enhances speed-to-service revenue and provides a rich set of quality-of-service (QoS) features for premium service delivery while effectively reducing the overall cost of ownership. Figure 1 shows a sample of the wide range of SPAs supported on the Cisco ASR 1000 Series, and Figure 2 shows the Cisco WebEx® Node for the Cisco ASR 1000 Series. Figure 3 shows the Cisco ASR 1000 Series SIP.
Figure 1. Cisco ASR 1000 Series SPAs
Figure 2. Cisco WebEx Node for the Cisco ASR 1000 Series
Figure 3. Cisco ASR 1000 Series SPA Interface Processor
Modular port adapters and programmable interface processors, which are interchangeable across Cisco carrier routing platforms, help enterprise and service provider companies protect network investments and reduce total cost of ownership. The Cisco SPA/SIP portfolio offers a rich set of quality-of-service (QoS) features for premium service delivery.
Features and Benefits
The Cisco SPA/SIP portfolio offers many advantages, including:
• Industry's most modular, flexible, intelligent interface processors:
– The SPAs/SIPs blend Software as a Service (SaaS) and enterprise networking to enable collaboration with confidence and reduce bandwidth consumption for WebEx® web, voice over IP (VoIP), and video sessions with the Cisco WebEx Node for the Cisco ASR 1000 Series.
– Powerful flexibility provides mix-and-match interface types on the same interface processor for consistent services, independent of access technology.
– Pioneering programmable interface processors provide flexibility for the service diversity required in next-generation networks.
– The innovative design provides intelligent delivery of services without compromising on performance.
• Increased speed to service revenue:
– The programmable Cisco architecture extended to 20 Gigabit Ethernet dramatically improves customer density, increasing potential revenue per platform.
– Interface breadth (copper, Channelized, PoS, ATM, and Ethernet) on a modular interface processor allows service providers to more quickly roll out new services, helping ensure that all customers large and small receive consistent, secure, and guaranteed services.
– High-density Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) interfaces are featured for high-port-count applications with reach flexibility. Future optical technology improvements can be adopted using existing SPAs.
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