Cisco 7000s - High-Power Mid-Range Modular Routers
AN INTRODUCTION TO CISCO 7000 SERIES ROUTERS
Cisco’s 7000 line, including the popular 7206VXR is a popular, powerful, modular router that maximizes flexibility and capabilities. It targets high-performance routing, and is often used in VOIP networks where routing efficiency is paramount. The 7000 series provides an amazingly broad set of possible models and configurations ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to in excess of $100k. There are several principal models:
- Cisco 7204/7206 nonVXR series, a 4 or 6 slot modular router with .6GB backplane, 1 - 2 modular power supplies, room for 6 port adapter cards, a selectable CPU (NPE) card (NPE-200 or 225), and selectable IO card with storage (basic IO or IO with fast ethernet). The primary limitation of the 7204/7206 nonVXR line is that higher-speed NPE cards won’t work in it, nor will most of the better and newer PA port adapter cards. But it is very, very inexpensive, and for basic DS3, ATM, Fiber, or fast ethernet routing - it does the job well. Reasonably configured nonVXR units can be configured for less than $1000.
- The VXR version - the 7204VXR and 7206VXR are the 1GB backplane versions of the above models - with the principal advantage of being able to use all of the Cisco NPE and PA cards, NPE-300, NPE-400, NPE-G1 and NPE-G2 (Note that the G1 and G2 also integrate the IO function, so a separate IO card isn’t needed). Pricing in the VXR line is quite varied - you can put together a decent bundle with NPE-400 (which is quite fast) for less than $4k all the way up to $13,000 or more for an NPE-G2 configured 7206VXR. If you don’t need all the PA expansion slots, the 7204VXR (just 4 instead of 6 PA slots) can save you $500 or more, if things are really tight.
- The 7401, 7301, and 7201 offer a 1U version with a built-in NPE card and IO function and power supply, plus 1 port adapter slot. Somewhat goofily, the 7401 is the oldest and least expensive of the three while the 7201 is the most recent. All three have gigabit ethernet, with the 7301 being about the same as a 1U NPE-G1 and the 7201 as an NPE-G2. If size and weight matter, and expandability and modularity don’t, then these are the models for you. The 7401 is particularly affordable, presently coming in at under $2000! Expect to pay about $8000 for the 7301, and $12k plus for the 7201 as of the end of 2008.
- A more powerful version of the 7204VXR/7206VXR is the 7304 router. The 7304 is a little bigger than the 7206, and a lot more powerful. Single or dual power can be installed, an integrated CPU card (labeled and NPE or NSE card - such as the NPE-G100 or NSE-G150), and there are four slots which require both a carrier card and an application card. There are two kinds of carrier cards - one for carrying ordinary PA cards just like I’ve already described, and a special one for carrying a series of enhanced PA cards, called “SPA” cards that are used only in the 7304. There is, for instance, an SPA-2GE card.
- An older 7500 series is also available. This is a bigger router - the smallest of them (the 7505) is about 1.5x the size of the 7204/7206 while versions with even more slots are twice as large. The 7500s have RSP cards that integrate the CPU mainboard and IO functions - the RSP4, RSP8, and RSP16 are the most popular, and the higher the better (and more expensive). There are some dedicated 7500 expansion cards that can be installed, most notabaly a PA-GEIP+ card which is an enhanced gigabit ethernet card designed just for the 7500, but mostly you use ordinary port adapter cards (PA) cards that are used in the 7204/7206/VXRs that are installed on a carrier card which goes inside in a 7500 slot. Like the nonVXR 7204/7206VXR, you can put together a reasonably powerful bundle (including gigabit interfaces) for a fairly modest price; $1k to $2k would be quite doable.
- The biggest and fastest 7000 series routers is the 7600, most commonly found in the 7606 (six slot) and 7609 (nine slot) chassis. Here is where the boundary between router and switch truly fades to gray, as most of the cards used in the 7600 are interchangeable with Cisco 6500 Catalyst switch series. Physically, the 7600 is roughly the size of the 7500, but it is a ‘big league’ router, with big league capabilities and price tag. Cisco writes that “The Cisco 7606 Router features 480 Gbps of switching capacity in a NEBS-compliant 40 Gigabit/slot configuration, delivering the needed capacity to power robust edge services for IP/MPLS networks. This compact 6-slot, 1/6 rack system delivers 30 Mpps centralized processing coupled with distributed processing for line-rate 10 & 1 Gigabit Ethernet services.”
While it’s often hard to find comparative information for models other than the 7200 models, click here for a link to pictures, components, and descriptions of the other models described above.
A lot to absorb, it’s true, but if you’re looking for a powerful and flexible modular router, there is no question that you can put together an unbeatable combination of value and features somewhere in the 7000 series.
