Cisco XR 12000 Series Router

The Cisco® XR 12000 is the first carrier router to offer integrated session border control (SBC) functions. The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller builds on the secure virtualization, continuous system operation, and multiservice scale provided by the market-leading Cisco XR 12000 Series. With the integration of session border control functions into Layer 2 and Layer 3 services provided by the Cisco XR 12000 Series, the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller eliminates the need for overlay networks and standalone appliances. The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller provides an open and flexible architecture for all service provider deployments, whether for peering or for customer access. With its ability to handle unified and distributed signaling deployments, the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller provides superior deployment flexibility to cable, wireline, and wireless service providers. A key element of the Cisco Service Exchange Framework (SEF) which supports IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and non-IMS services, the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller further accelerates network convergence while providing investment protection for the Cisco 12000 Series.

Session border controllers control and manage real-time multimedia traffic flows between IP network borders, handling signaling and media. As part of this job, they perform native IP interconnection functions required for real-time communications such as access control, firewall traversal, bandwidth policing, accounting, signaling interworking, legal intercept, and quality-of-service (QoS) management. With its comprehensive suite of features and high-availability hardware and software, the Cisco XR 12000 Series helps enable a broad range of session border control applications for cable, wireline, and wireless service providers. The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller application incorporates the security, QoS, and secure virtualization capabilities of the Cisco XR 12000 Series to enable support for service provider-to-service provider interconnect and service provider-to-access interconnect for voice over IP (VoIP) and video services.

The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller application takes advantage of the advanced hardware processing capabilities of the Cisco XR 12000 Multi-Service Blade to provide a flexible, scalable, and feature-rich implementation (Figure 1). The integration of Session Border Controller into the Cisco XR 12000 Series routers facilitates the deployment of advanced services that require a combination of Layer 2 and Layer 3 functions (QoS, Security, VPN interconnect, etc ) and session border control functions. The modularity of the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller application and of Cisco IOS® XR Software enables operators to load, configure, turn on, and turn off session border control functions with zero impact to any other control and data plane traffic on the same router. Operators can also partition the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller functions into various logical and virtual routers that can be configured on the Cisco XR 12000 Series Routers.

With the increasing deployment of end-to-end VoIP and IP video, service providers are looking to interconnect directly with IP and minimize time-division multiplexing (TDM)-based handoff to other service provider networks. Direct IP interconnect helps minimize operational and capital expenditures by eliminating back-to-back TDM gateways; it also increases media quality and helps ensure transparency of IP-based services across network borders. The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller provides the following critical functions required for direct IP interconnect without introducing any additional network elements:

With the rapid growth in IP telephony and other real-time services such as IP video, service providers are deploying session border control appliances at the provider edge to manage VoIP traffic in different scenarios, including IP-PBX-to-service provider peering, VPN interworking (with multiple sites for the same customer and multiple customers), and enterprise-to-hosted IP telephony interworking, as well as the fast-growing residential IP telephony. The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller builds on Cisco Layer 2 and Layer 3 services and integrates the session border control function by providing the following features:

For both the service provider-to-service provider and service provider-to-access applications, the innovative architecture of the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller gives a choice of unified or distributed signaling deployment (Figure 2). In the unified deployment model, the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller hosts both media-related and signaling-related functions. In the distributed deployment model, the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller hosts the media-related functions and communicates with an external signaling function over an industry-standard interface based on the H.248 protocol. Cisco's Session Border Controller design allows for either deployment model, using the same hardware and software.

Highest performance and scalability - With 10 Gbps processing capacity for each Cisco XR 12000 Multi-Service Blade, the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller can scale to more than 200,000 simultaneous sessions on a single chassis. With its high-throughput interface into the Cisco XR 12000 switching fabric, the session border controller is designed to not only scale for VoIP sessions but also to support high-bandwidth video sessions.

High availability - The advanced high-availability design of the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller and Cisco XR 12000 Series Routers provides the maximum service availability required for real-time sessions such as VoIP and video. Availability features include:

Industry-standard protocols and interfaces - The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller incorporates support for industry-standard protocols for VoIP and video, including Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323. The Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller offers broad support for various SIP- and H.323-based services traversing it. In addition, the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller supports the TISPAN Ia interface, which is based on the H.248 protocol and enables a distributed implementation of session border control signaling and media flow.

Maximum flexibility - The native implementation of session border control on the Cisco XR 12000 Series provides a host of additional capabilities that are not possible with standalone session border control appliances. Service providers can now combine the Layer 2 and Layer 3 services offering with the session border control functions to not only derive the benefits of network convergence, but to also add unique services. Session border control functions can now be applied at a more granular VPN level. Business VPN services can now be combined with business voice and video services. Similarly, network-based security services such as IP Security (IPsec) and firewall can be combined with session border control functions.

Table 1 lists the features of the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller.

Table 2 gives ordering information for the Cisco XR 12000 Session Border Controller.

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For more information about the Cisco XR 12000 Series, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/12000.