Cisco 2010 Connected Grid Router Data Sheet

The Cisco^® Connected Grid portfolio of solutions is designed specifically for the harsh, rugged environments often found in the energy and utility industries. These solutions include the Cisco 2010 Connected Grid Router (CGR 2010) and the Cisco 2520 Connected Grid Switch (CGS 2520), which have been designed to support the communications infrastructure needs of the energy delivery infrastructure across the generation, transmission, and distribution sectors. This infrastructure includes utility- and customer-owned energy infrastructure such as substation applications supporting electrical transmission and distribution, renewable generation, oil and gas, water, distributed generation, co-generation, and trackside operations. The infrastructure also includes communications infrastructure for delivery applications such as transmission pipelines, distribution mains, and service lines for oil and gas and water. Designed for highly secure, reliable, and scalable infrastructure, the CGR 2010 and CGS 2520 are an ideal platform to support the Smart Grid and other energy delivery infrastructure needs of customers. These ruggedized products have been extensively tested and are KEMA certified to meet challenging substation compliance standards, including IEEE 1613 and IEC 61850-3.

The Cisco CGR 2010 is a rugged router optimized for use in the multitude of different communication networks found in the energy and utility industries (Figure 1). One example application for the Cisco CGR 2010 is for substation networks in harsh environments common in utility transmission and distribution substations. The CGR 2010 provides operators with the benefits of improved security, manageability, and network reliability. The CGR 2010 uses Cisco IOS^® Software, which is the operating system powering millions of Cisco routers deployed worldwide. Cisco IOS Software delivers the benefits of integrated security for North American Electric Reliability Corporation/Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC/CIP) compliance, quality of service, and network management to help ensure integrity and priority of operational data communications.

Primary Cisco CGR 2010 features:

●   Rugged industrial design, featuring no fans or moving parts, and an extended operational temperature range

●   Substation compliance with IEC-61850-3 and IEEE 1613 for utility substation environments

●   Integrated security to help address compliance with critical infrastructure protection mandates

●   High availability design for maximum network uptime and redundancy

●   Network and device management tools for deployments, upgrades, and remote monitoring

●   Advanced quality of service (QoS) capabilities to support mission-critical communications such as substation communications such as SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)

●   Comprehensive network security features based on open standards

Networking Solutions and the Cisco CGR 2010: Substation Automation Example

Substation automation promises to bring more automation and intelligence to the power grid network to address a myriad of utility challenges. Utilities are focused on how to improve grid reliability, enhance network security to meet regulatory requirements, and reduce operational expenses. The Cisco Connected Grid Router and Switch offer utilities a rugged networking solution to enable reliable and secure two-way communication for substation automation. Figure 2 shows a converged end-to-end IP network from the data center to the home. The CGR 2010 and the CGR 2520 are deployed in both transmission and distribution substations. Networking these points of presence provides network operators with greater visibility into grid assets and helps identify, isolate, and restore outages more efficiently.

Product Overview

The Cisco CGR 2010 builds upon the award-winning Integrated Services Router G2 (ISR G2) platform to deliver high-quality routing, security, management, and network intelligence. With embedded hardware encryption acceleration, optional firewall, and intrusion prevention, the CGR 2010 provides integrated security to protect energy-related communication networks. Specifically, for utilities, the CGR 2010 complies with cyber security requirements such as the NERC/CIP mandates. In addition, the platform supports T1/E1 WAN interfaces with integrated CSU/DSU interfaces, synchronous and asynchronous serial RS-232 interfaces, and copper and fiber Gigabit Ethernet.

Key Business Benefits

The CGR 2010 is designed for network security, scalability, durability, and investment protection. The modular architecture facilitates upgrades to your energy networks without requiring a complete equipment upgrade of the routing platform. New modules can be added over time as communications requirements change. Table 1 lists the business benefits of the CGR 2010.

Table 1.       Key Business Benefits of the CGR 2010

Platform Architecture and Modularity

The CGR 2010 is designed to meet the demanding environments of energy and utility communication networks, while offering reliable network services and performance required across the energy network. A modular design allows for forward flexibility to support future applications and interfaces for maximum investment protection. The modular architecture is designed to support increasing bandwidth requirements, various interface types, and fully integrated power distribution. Table 2 lists the architectural features and benefits of the CGR 2010.

Table 2.       Architectural Features and Benefits

Modularity Features and Benefits

The Cisco CGR 2010 provides modular capabilities (refer to Table 3), offering investment protection for customers. With the advent of a new family of Grid Router WAN Interface Cards (GRWIC), customers will have the capability to interchange modules and interfaces to meet their future requirements. Services and additional interface options enabled by current and future modules will help provide customers with flexible and robust options to upgrade their networks to meet increasing needs for greater bandwidth and intelligence within energy networks.

Table 3.       Modularity Features and Benefits

Cisco IOS Software

The CGR 2010 delivers innovative technologies running on industry-leading Cisco IOS Software. Developed for wide deployment in the world's most demanding, harsh environments, the CGR 2010 platform is supported on Cisco IOS Software release 15.1T and higher. Release 15.1(1)T provides support for a comprehensive portfolio of Cisco technologies, including the functionality and features delivered in releases 12.4 and 12.4T. New innovations in 15.1(1)T span multiple technology areas, including security, high availability, IP routing and multicast, quality of service (QoS), Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), VPNs, and embedded management.

Cisco IOS Software Licensing and Packaging

A single Cisco IOS Universal image, encompassing all IOS technology feature sets, is delivered with the platforms. You can enable advanced features by activating a software license on the Universal image. Technology packages and feature licenses, enabled through the Cisco software licensing infrastructure, simplify software delivery and decrease the operational costs of deploying new features.

Three major technology licenses are available on the CGR 2010 platform; you can activate the licenses through the Cisco software activation process identified at http://www.cisco.com/go/sa. The three licenses are as follows:

●   IP Base: This technology package is available as default.

●   Data

●   Security (SEC) or Security with No Payload Encryption (SEC-NPE)

Integrated Network Security

Cyber security is critical to the reliability of energy networks. Operators must help ensure data communications used to operate energy infrastructure take priority and are not compromised by cyber attacks. Cisco has created a full suite of security features designed to help ensure the integrity of grid communications.

The Cisco IOS Software Security technology package for the CGR 2010 offers a wide array of common security features, such as advanced application inspection and control, threat protection, and encryption architectures for enabling more scalable and manageable VPN networks. The CGR 2010 offers onboard hardware-based encryption acceleration to provide greater IPSec throughput with less overhead for the route processor when compared with software-based encryption solutions. The CGR 2010 offers a comprehensive and adaptable security solution for energy networks that includes features such as:

●   Secure connectivity: Secure collaborative communications with Group Encrypted Transport VPN, Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN), or Enhanced Easy VPN

●   Integrated threat control: Responding to sophisticated network attacks and threats, using Cisco IOS Firewall, Cisco IOS Zone-Based Firewall, Cisco IOS Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Cisco IOS Content Filtering, and Flexible Packet Matching (FPM)

●   Identity management: Intelligently protecting endpoints using technologies such as authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) and public key infrastructure (PKI)

Combination Gigabit Ethernet Ports

The CGR 2010 supports two on-board Combo (RJ45 for copper or SFP for fiber) Gigabit Ethernet interfaces for WAN and LAN connectivity. Both Layer 2 and Layer 3 (IP routing) features are supported on these interfaces for maximum flexibility. For expanded Ethernet port requirements, the Cisco CGR 2520 supports up to 24 ports of copper and/or fiber, depending on the model chosen and there are switching GRWICs available to provide up to an additional 20 ports.

Application Acceleration

The CGR 2010 smoothly combines industry-leading security, Cisco IOS Software-based traffic control, and visibility with Cisco application acceleration solutions. Cisco IOS Software features such as NBAR, IP SLA, and Netflow provide visibility and monitoring of traffic patterns and application performance, while IOS features such as Quality of Service (QoS), Access Control Lists (ACLs), and Performance Routing (PfR) intelligently control the traffic to maximize the quality of the user experience and employee productivity.

Managing Your Connected Grid Router

Network management applications are instrumental in lowering operating expenses (OpEx), while improving network availability by simplifying and automating many of the day-to-day tasks associated with managing an end- to-end network. Day-one device support provides immediate manageability support for the CGR 2010, enabling quick and easy deployment, monitoring, and troubleshooting from Cisco and third-party applications.

Organizations rely on Cisco-, third-party-, and in-house-developed network management applications to achieve their OpEx and productivity goals. Underpinning those applications are the embedded management features available in every Connected Grid Router. These routers incorporate deep manageability features, such as IP service-level agreement (IP SLA), Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM), and NetFlow, which allow you to know the status of your network at all times. These features, along with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and syslog, enable your organization's management applications.

Refer to Tables 4 and 5 below for details about network management and manageability support on the Cisco CGR 2010.

Table 4.       Cisco Connected Grid Router IOS Software Features and Protocols Support

Table 5 lists the embedded management features available with Cisco IOS Software.

Table 5.       Embedded Management Features Available with Cisco IOS Software

The Cisco network management applications listed in Table 6 are standalone products that you can download or purchase to manage your Cisco network devices. The applications are built specifically for the different operational phases; you can select the ones that best fit your needs.

Table 6.       Network Management Applications

Summary

As your business strives to lower the total cost of ownership in running your network, you will need more intelligent communication solutions to empower the workforce managing the network. The CGR 2010 offers these solutions by providing enhanced performance and increased modular density to support multiple services. The CGR 2010 is designed to consolidate the functions of many separate devices into a single, compact system.

Table 7.       Cisco Connected Grid Router 2010 Product Specifications

Part Numbers

Small Form-Factor Pluggable SFP's for CGR 2010

The CGR-2010/K9 provides 2 SFP slots supporting 100mbps or 1000mbps rugged fiber SFPs. Both Ethernet WAN ports on the CGR 2010 are dual purpose ports and can support either two Small Form-Factor Pluggable fiber (SFP)-ports, two 10/100/1000mbps copper ports, or one of each. These SFPs are not available as part of the system order and should be ordered as spares if needed.

Table 8.       SFP Options for the Cisco CGR 2010 Router (Spare Only)

Note:    For DOM support and for first software release supporting SFP, refer to http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/modules/ps5455/products_device_support_tables_list.html

Ordering Information

These products can be ordered by a Cisco authorized partner. For more information about product availability, please contact your Cisco representative.

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