Cisco to introduce IP technologies designed to eliminate packet loss

Cisco Systems tomorrow will introduce a portfolio of new standards-based technologies called Globally Resilient IP (GRIP) that will enable its customers to deploy IP networks with zero packet loss.

The GRIP technologies will be delivered in Cisco’s IOS software. Current Cisco infrastructure customers that fall under the company’s service agreement would receive the GRIP upgrade at no charge. The company will target GRIP to both the service provider and enterprise markets, but rollouts to service providers will occur first.

According to Cisco, GRIP consists of four protocols that enable “uninterruptible” IP services: resilient routing, resilient link layer, resilient connectivity and resilient multiprotocol layer switching (MPLS).

Key components of the resilient routing protocol include “nonstop forwarding and stateful switchover,” which together enable continuous packet forwarding in the event of route processor interruptions by continuing to forward packets over the last known routes. Neighboring routers do not have to update their routing tables, which increases network stability, said Cisco.

According to third-party tester Mier Communications, this capability resulted in zero packet loss on the Cisco 1200 series Internet router during a route process switchover.

The resilient IP services protocol enables real-time services such as IPSec and network address translation to be distributed across multiple redundant routers, delivering fault tolerance for IP, said Cisco.

In addition, resilient connectivity extends “stateful failover” to essential Layer 2 connection information for fast recovery in the event of a loss of conductivity, while resilient MPLS incorporates fast reroute traffic engineering, which guards against link or router failures and provides failover recovery in less than 50 milliseconds, said Cisco.

Tim McSweeney, GRIP product manager, said the key driver behind the development of the suite is the convergence of multiple applications onto the IP network.

"More is being demanded of IP networks," McSweeney said. "For things like voice that can't tolerate interruptions, IP has to be resilient and be able to recover quickly from any kind of fault event."

McSweeney added that GRIP is ideally suited for service providers and enterprises engaging in real-time services where packet loss is critical, such as video, carrier-class telephony, financial transactions, stock transactions and online storage.