Cisco Beefs Up The 7200 Router

At Interop today, Cisco will announce security enhancements to the 7200 Services Aggregation Router. The 7200 sits in the headquarters aggregating together the Cisco Integrated Service Routers (ISRs) located in branch offices.

At the core of the announcement is a faster version of its Network Processing Engine (NPE), dubbed the Cisco 7200VXR NPE-G2 Network Processing Engine (NPE-G2). The NPE-G2 will double the routing performance of the NPE-G1 reaching up to 2 million packets per second (PPS), enabling the 7200 to take on more security functions. Performance gains came by adding memory and using a faster processor in the NPE-G2.

Working with the NPE-G2 is a new VPN module called the VPN Services Adapter (VSA). Cisco claims the VSA will allow the 7200 router to process IPSec VPN traffic faster than if the 7200 run the existing VPN acceleration module (VAM). Like the VAM, the VSA will support Data Encryption Standard (DES), Triple DES (3DES), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). It includes hardware acceleration for 128-, 192-, and 256-bit AES keys.

Capacity of the 7200 will improve through Cisco's Port Adapter Jacket Card. The Port Adapter Jacket Card will connect with the PCI-buses of the NPE-G2s and existing NPE-G1s to increase the 7200 performance by 50 percent. The Port Adapter Jacket Card adds a seventh slot to Cisco 7204VXR and 7206VXR chasses, which can be filled with another a dual T-3 adapter or an OC-3 card.