The Cisco®I-Flex design combines shared port adapters (SPAs) and SPA interface processors (SIPs), offering an extensible design that enables service prioritization for data, voice, and video services. Enterprise and service provider customers can take advantage of improved slot economics resulting from modular port adapters that are interchangeable across Cisco routing platforms. The I-Flex design maximizes connectivity options and offers superior service intelligence through programmable interface processors that deliver line-rate performance. The interface processors help accelerate service delivery and revenues and provide a rich set of quality-of-service (QoS) features for premium service delivery. The processors also lower costs by reducing the number of platforms to deploy and manage in any given network. This data sheet contains specifications for the Cisco 7600 Series SPA Interface Processor‑400 (Cisco 7600 SIP-400).

The Cisco 7600 SIP-400 helps enable high-performance, intelligent wide-and metropolitan-area network (WAN/MAN) services. Enterprises and service providers can take full advantage of the increased scalability, performance, and rich features offered by the Cisco 7600 SIP-400, along with the many options for WAN aggregation and connectivity offered in the SPA/SIP portfolio. The Cisco 7600 SIP-400 accepts up to four Cisco SPAs, including ATM, packet over SONET/SDH (POS), Ethernet and Circuit Emulation over Packet (CEoP), BITS Clocking support, and WAN/MAN connectivity.

Applications
WAN, MAN, and LAN Service Convergence

The Cisco 7600 SIP-400 simplifies network design and deployment by allowing consolidation of LAN, WAN, and MAN interfaces into a single, highly scalable platform - the Cisco 7600 Series. The Cisco 7600 Series supports any mix of media or traffic within a common system, software, and chassis, thereby simplifying network configuration and installation tasks and accelerating service delivery. Converged data, voice, and video traffic can be transported transparently from end to end across an interconnected LAN, WAN, or MAN; the Cisco 7600 Series can manage thousands of simultaneous traffic flows at wire speed with granular QoS and security control.

WAN Aggregation

The Cisco 7600 SIP-400 helps enable the Cisco 7600 Series to perform high-end WAN aggregation based on Ethernet, point-to-point circuits, Frame Relay, ATM, or POS. The rich QoS features and distributed processing attributes of the Cisco 7600 SIP-400 make it a cornerstone of a highly scalable WAN aggregation solution. Higher‑layer applications can easily be supported on an end-to-end network to enable intelligent data, voice, video, and security services - all on the same platform - for integrated, easy-to-use application delivery and control.

Circuit Emulation over Packet and Channelized ATM

With the Cisco 7600 SIP-400, the Cisco 7600 Series can perform the TDM-over-packet functions (Structure‑Agnostic Transport over Packet [SAToP] and Circuit Emulation Services over Packet Switched Networks [CESoPSN]) using Circuit Emulation over Packet (CEoP) SPAs, allowing the migration of traditional TDM functions to more cost-effective and scalable packet-based architectures. In addition, the ability to perform channelized ATM functions on the CEoP SPAs greatly simplifies migration of traditional ATM infrastructure to packet-based technologies.

Features and Benefits
Scalable Bandwidth with Intelligent Network Services for Next-Generation Applications

The unique value provided by the Cisco 7600 Series is the convergence supported from the physical layer to a highly scalable application layer. The Cisco 7600 Series can scale from 10 Megabit Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet in the LAN, and DS-0 to OC-48/STM-16 in the WAN. Differentiated Services (DiffServ) and IP Precedence priority packet marking, along with QoS classification, policing, queuing, intelligent packet discard, and security access control on every port, help ensure that the platform can meet the demands of any network environment. The rich QoS features of the Cisco 7600 Series include the capability to guarantee bandwidth to businesscritical applications; limit bandwidth to noncritical applications; drop selective, low-priority packets to avoid congestion; and mark packets to control QoS for any type of traffic flow.

Lower Cost of Ownership

A major benefit of LAN, WAN, and MAN consolidation on the Cisco 7600 Series is the reduction in the number of platforms to deploy and manage in any given network. This service convergence not only simplifies network design and configuration, but it also decreases rack space, power requirements, and the training and administrative burden associated with managing many different platforms. Such integration eases the support needs of maintenance staff; spare parts for multiple platforms do not need to be stocked or managed.

These benefits directly reduce capital expenditures (CapEx) and ongoing operational costs of network management, such as training, element management, and inventory and configuration management. In addition to requiring fewer platforms, a converged solution from Cisco means that all LAN, WAN, and MAN functions can be managed with the same network management tool set, reducing the number of management platforms required.