Today, Cisco announced three significant enhancements to the Cisco Evolved Programmable Network (EPN) portfolio, an open, elastic, and application-centric network infrastructure framework that enables service providers to accelerate time to revenue while reducing the costs of deploying new services. The new technologies include:

• Cisco Application Engineered Routing
• Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Virtual Router
• High-density 100GE line cards for the Cisco ASR 9000 Series
  

With this announcement, Cisco is integrating its industry-leading programmability, virtualization and orchestration capabilities into its best-of-breed core and edge networking portfolio. These latest EPN innovations will help service providers increase overall profitability and service agility in delivering new revenue-generating services to customers.

 

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index(TM) Global Forecast for 2013 to 2018, global Internet Protocol (IP) traffic will increase three-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 21 percent, due to more Internet users and devices, faster broadband speeds and more video viewing. Today's service provider networks need to be able to scale for the exponential traffic and cloud growth as forecasted over the next several years, and operators recognize that they need to be more agile, flexible and profitable to remain competitive. Cisco's EPN, which works via open APIs with the complementary Cisco Evolved Services Platform (ESP), enables web-speed agility with an open, elastic, and application-centric network infrastructure.

Additionally, Cisco Consulting Services predicts that the Internet of Everything (IoE) represents a $1.7 trillion opportunity for service providers over the next decade. The Cisco EPN offers service providers the tools to evolve their network infrastructures to manage M2M data, which has its own application-specific transport requirements, as well as unprecedented, dynamic traffic patterns.

"Our portfolio is the most comprehensive in the industry, supporting the actual requirements of our service provider customers for scale, virtualization with performance, and programmability - and not just point solutions to address the latest capability buzz word," said Brendan Gibbs, vice president, service provider routing group, Cisco. "Service providers must evaluate the unique needs of their networks, business models and customers, and deploy technologies that meet these needs. Our latest innovations will help our customers reduce costs while improving speed to new service delivery. They advance our EPN framework and arm service providers with the tools required to enhance their customers' experiences, while optimizing their own architectures for greater profitability and growth."

Application-Engineered Routing Delivers Unparalleled Programmability

By enabling applications to communicate directly with the network, service providers can improve the quality of the customer experience and simplify network operations. With the introduction of Cisco Application Engineered Routing, Cisco is the first in the industry to build an agile service-creation environment, combining the capabilities of open, standards-based Segment Routing with software-defined-networking (SDN). This end-to-end solution drives new levels of programmability, allowing service providers to reduce operational costs and drive incremental revenue with on-demand latency, bandwidth and availability capabilities.

Virtual Router Enables Delivery of On-Demand Services To rapidly respond to customer demands and trial on-demand solutions, service providers must deploy advanced virtualization capabilities. Adding to Cisco's nearly 50 virtual network functions, the most in the industry, which span security, managed services, broadband, policy and mobility applications, Cisco has packaged the scale and carrier-class performance of Cisco IOS XR as a virtualized router. The IOS XRv 9000 Virtual Router, to be available in the second quarter of 2015, further increases service agility and provides a low cost entry point for the IOS XR family. Additionally, IOS XRv operates on x86-based hardware for on demand, cost optimized service deployment and complements the existing Cisco Cloud Services Routers (CSR1000v) targeted at the enterprise and managed services markets.

High-Density Carrier Ethernet Line Cards Reduce CapEx by 20 Percent

Increasing network bandwidth to accommodate the onslaught of mobile, cloud and video applications, while lowering power consumption, cost per bit and floor space, allows service providers to deliver next-generation capabilities while cutting their own operating costs. Cisco's high-density 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) line cards for the Cisco ASR 9000 Series, available in both four- and eight-port versions, support Cisco silicon photonic CPAK technology and enable each 100GE port to be configured as 100GE, 40GE, or 10x10GE based on customer requirements. Additionally, the new line cards provide the increased capacity and scale necessary to support new cloud- and network-based applications. This advancement solidifies Cisco ASR 9000 Series as the highest single platform 100GE density of any Carrier Ethernet platform in the industry and reduces power consumption by up to 64 percent, floor space by 75 percent and cost per bit by 20 percent as compared to the previous generation.