Cisco Systems A9014CFD manual Introduction, Performance Features

Chapter 1 Cisco ASR 901 Router Overview

Introduction

Introduction

A RAN is typically composed of thousands of BTSs or Node Bs, hundreds of base station controllers or radio network controllers (BSCs or RNCs), and several mobile switching centers (MSCs). The BTS or Node Bs and BSC or RNC are often separated by large geographic distances, with the BTSs or Node Bs located in cell sites uniformly distributed throughout a region, and the BSCs, RNCs, and MSCs located at suitably chosen Central Offices (CO) or mobile telephone switching offices (MTSO).

The traffic generated by a BTS or Node B is transported to the corresponding BSC or RNC across a network, referred to as the backhaul network, which is often a hub-and-spoke topology with hundreds of BTS or Node Bs connected to a BSC or RNC by point-to-point time division multiplexing (TDM) trunks. These TDM trunks may be leased-line T1/E1s or their logical equivalents, such as microwave links or satellite channels.

The Cisco ASR 901 has two different types of interfaces by default: network node interfaces (NNIs) to connect to the service provider network and user network interfaces (UNIs) to connect to customer networks. Some features are supported only on one of these port types. You can also configure enhanced network interfaces (ENIs). An ENI is typically a user-network facing interface and has the same default configuration and functionality as UNIs, but can be configured to support protocol control packets for Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Spanning-Tree Protocol (STP), EtherChannel Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP).

Features

This section contains the following topics:

•Performance Features, page 1-2

•Management Options, page 1-3

•Manageability Features, page 1-3

•Security Features, page 1-4

•Quality of Service and Class of Service Features, page 1-4

•Layer 3 Features, page 1-5

•Layer 3 VPN Services, page 1-5

•Monitoring Features, page 1-5

Performance Features

•Autosensing of port speed and autonegotiation of duplex mode on all ports for optimizing bandwidth.

•Automatic-medium-dependent interface crossover (auto-MDIX) capability on 100 and 100/1000 Mbps interfaces and on 100/1000 BASE-T/TX small form-factor pluggable (SFP) module interfaces that enables the interface to automatically detect the required cable connection type (straight-through or crossover) and to configure the connection appropriately.

•EtherChannel for enhanced fault tolerance and for providing up to 8 Gbps (Gigabit EtherChannel) or 800 Mbps (Fast EtherChannel) full duplex of bandwidth between switches, routers, and servers.

•Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) for automatic creation of EtherChannel links (supported only on NNIs or ENIs).

Cisco ASR 901 Series Aggregation Services Router Software Configuration Guide

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