Cisco ups the ante at the Ethernet edge

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is upping the ante in the edge-networks equipment space, announcing today the addition of Ethernet interface cards to its Aggregation Services Router 9000 that set a new industry record for density.

The new line cards for Cisco’s ASR 9000, available sometime in the next few months, will include 16 10-gigabit-per-second Ethernet ports, for a total per-slot Ethernet capacity of 160 Gb/s. Because some of those ports would be oversubscribed, however, the actual capacity, in practice, will be somewhat less. But Cisco puts it well north of 100 Gb/s.

That would make the new cards the densest ones on the market, according to Eve Griliches, IDC analyst. “Even if it’s just 120 Gb/s, with four ports available for oversubscription, that’s great,” she said, adding the caveat: “These guys are all leapfrogging each other on any given month…I expect by the end of this year, everyone will have announced fairly similar products, and it will come down to performance.”

Simon Leopold, an analyst with Morgan Keegan, said in a research note last month that Juniper Networks (NASDAQ: JNPR) could start trialing 100-GigE cards for its MX 960 Ethernet Services Router before the end of the year – roughly the same time as Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU). In addition, Huawei Technologies could introduce a 100-GigE card for its NE40 product as early as the third quarter, he said.

When Alcatel-Lucent revealed in June that it would begin shipping 100-gigabit-per-second Ethernet interfaces for its edge equipment next summer, it set a new density record over Cisco and Juniper but one that Cisco has now broken only two months later with a product that will hit the market nearly a year before Alcatel-Lucent’s does.

Unlike Cisco, however, Alcatel-Lucent announced two options for the upgrade of its edge switches and routers: a card with 10 10-Gb/s ports or a card with a single 100-Gb/s Ethernet port. A single 100-GigE link could reduce traffic overhead and be easier to manage than individual 10-GigE links, but a 100-GigE industry standard is not expected to be finalized until next summer, around the time that Alcatel-Lucent expects to start shipping its 100-GigE gear.

In announcing the new ASR 9000 cards this week, however, Cisco implied that it won’t allow Alcatel-Lucent a head start in the 100-GigE race. “As soon as the standard’s available, you will see Cisco ship a 100-Gig interface,” said Praveen Akkiraju, general manager for Cisco’s core routing business unit. “We’re going to be shipping as soon as the standard’s finalized.”

At the same time, Akkiraju said it’s important to wait until optical components based on the 100-GigE standard are available. “There’s a long debate on whether we should ship pre-standard 100-gig interfaces,” he said. “Some of our customers are pretty adamant that they don’t want to go through two upgrade cycles on an important interface like 100 Gig.”

Alcatel-Lucent has argued that the standard is already well-defined and unlikely to change by next summer.