Cisco modules boost 7200 Series routers
New modules to support voice and video over IP.
Cisco has announced three new hardware modules to upgrade its 7200 Series routers and extend their life at companies needing more bandwidth or processing power, to support new voice and video services at branch offices, for example.
The three modules are the 7200 Network Processing Engine (NPE-G2), the 7200 VPN Services Adapter (VSA), and the 7200 Port Adapter Jacket Card (PAJC), which Cisco said can support secure services aggregation routing at Optical Carrier 3 (OC-3) and Gigabit Ethernet speeds.
The 7200 is Cisco’s primary edge-routing platform worldwide. Neil Walker, EMEA head of product marketing for core and foundation technologies, said, “It’s been in the market for 10 years and we have 330,000 units installed.”
Walker added, “The 7200 Series routers act as an aggregator for our Internet Services Router [ISR] platforms in firms’ headquarters or they could sit in service providers’ datacentres, for instance, as an IP aggregation point in a DSL environment.”
The NPE–G2 module doubles the network processing speed and the VSA module accelerates VPNs. The PAJC module “provides an additional network module slot giving you extra connectivity”, added Walker. “Because of the way the platform’s architected we can radically change it without necessitating fork-lift upgrades – which is good news from the point of view of protecting customers’ investments,” he said.
The Cisco 7200 NPE-G2 and PAJC are now available priced at about £10,300 + VAT and £680 + VAT respectively. The VSA module will be available in the second half of this year and is expected to cost around £8,150 + VAT.