Cisco Bolsters Software To Combat DoS Attacks

CHICAGO — Cisco Systems Inc. came to Supercomm here with an updated software suite to combat distributed denial-of-service attacks, implemented in both stand-alone appliances and router and switch modules.

The company made a special effort to show that its core transport strategies are gaining momentum, listing customers for the reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (Roadm), which debuted last fall as a version of its ONS 15454 platform. It also highlighted it CRS-1 core router, launched with much fanfare in spring 2004.

Jeff Spagnola, Cisco's vice president of service provider marketing, said the factor leading to true CRS-1 network rollouts by carriers like British Telecom has been the arrival of very high bandwidth services at the network edge."The 12000 router family is now used at both core and edge," Spagnola said. "That puts the pressure on carriers to upgrade to CRS-1 at the heart of their networks."

Spagnola said 15 customers have so far deployed the system, with 15 additional customers in early trials. Cisco and Fujitsu Ltd. announced co-branded CRS-1 systems for the Asian market last December, and the first system is slated to be delivered to a carrier soon.

Where Cisco is seeing more traction is in pure optical transport solutions, in particular the Roadm version of the ONS 15xxx platform (different versions of this platform perform Sonet ADM and transport duties). Cisco primarily competes with vendors offering a mix of Roadm and metro dense-wave division, such as Ciena Corp. and Nortel Networks Inc., though some startups like Tropic Networks Inc. focus just on Roadm platforms.Spagnola said its important for broad-based vendors to offer a mix of DWDM systems, which become congested in large networks.

More than 650 Roadm systems have been shipped to customers since last fall.

Cisco's new DNS software can be used in a managed network, in managed hosting environments and at peering edges between carriers and Internet service providers. The software elements can be used in the Cisco Traffic Anomaly Detector XT standalone appliances, or in detector modules within the 7600 router family or 6500 Catalyst switch family.