Cisco tags IP+ATM solution

Cisco has announced its integrated IP+ATM strategy, as well as three WAN edge switches and a core switch. The switches integrate Internet protocol and asynchronous transfer mode via multiprotocol label switching, Cisco's implementation of tag switching. The edge switches incorporate Cisco IOS software and IP+ATM management tools.

"We are uniting Cisco IOS with carrier-class ATM [networks]," said Rob Keil, group product manager in Cisco's WAN business unit. "We are tightly integrating IP and ATM for our customers across three different components: integrated services, platforms and management. IP is driving a host of next generation services, [and carriers] have to balance that against the bulk of today's data revenues, [which come] from frame relay, Systems Network Architecture and leased line services." The benefit for customers is guaranteed interoperability from a switch that works on both sides, he said.

"There has been a lot of hype about everything moving to IP, but in reality there is a lot of traffic that still requires quality of service, and not all applications lend themselves easily to IP," said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group, Dedham, Mass. Cisco's products, she said, "will allow service organizations to provide legacy as well as IP applications."

Cisco's edge switches include the BPX 8650, an upgrade for current customers; the MGX 8800 wide area switch for points of presence (POPs) and central offices; and the BPX 8680 universal service node for large, centralized POPs.

The TGX 8750 optical core switch implements MPLS and supports private network-network interface, Sonet/synchronous digital hierarchy automatic protection switching and OC-48c optical networking. MPLS/tag switching eliminates the tunneling usually required when transporting IP over ATM. This better maintains QOS, and tunnels don't have to be provisioned manually, Keil said.