Table Of Contents
Cisco 10000 Series Router Software Overview
Quality of Service and Policy Features
Performance Optimization Features
Software Summary
This chapter summarizes the software features of the Cisco 10000 series router and includes the following sections:
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Cisco 10000 Series Router Software Overview
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Cisco 10000 Series Router Software Overview
The Cisco 10000 series router is optimized for aggregation. More than one thousand potential features were analyzed to engineer it. In examining each feature, the engineers worked to create those that were standards-based, reliable, provided security, offered flexibility, and were a logical fit on the edge of the network.
While the software features of the Cisco 10000 series router include a host of features from ping to hot-swapping, several features are specifically optimized for use in an aggregation router. In general, features can be enhanced in two ways:
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The Cisco 10000 series router software is based on Cisco IOS Release 12.0(S), but not all features in that release are supported for several possible reasons. The technology may be superseded by other technology, or the technology is not required by high-volume leased line Internet Service Providers (ISPs), or support for the technology is planned for a future release.
This chapter introduces some of the features that were optimized for the Cisco 10000 series router, as well as other features that are critical for an aggregation router.
Supported Encapsulations
Encapsulation refers to enveloping the data structure of a protocol within another protocol and adding packet header information. The network supporting the encapsulating protocol is able to carry data from a different protocol and reduce network costs.
This section introduces the Layer 3 encapsulations supported on the Cisco 10000 series router.
GRE Tunneling
GRE Tunneling with GRE IP and DVMRP multicast tunnel modes enables the Cisco 10000 series router to transport otherwise un-routable packets across the IP network and provide data separation for VPN services.
GRE tunnels make it possible to have multiprotocol local networks running over a single-protocol backbone. They also provide workarounds for networks containing protocols that have limited hop counts, connectivity for discontinuous subnetworks, and allow VPNs to connect across wide-area networks.
Multilink Point-to-Point Protocol
The Multilink Point-to-Point Protocol (MLP) bundles T1 or E1 links to create logical multilink interfaces with a single IP address. It also provides a convenient way to increase bandwidth without the expense of a full DS3 connection.
In addition, MLP bundles can span multiple cards, creating a form of redundancy. If one card goes down, the MLP bundle links that are terminated by other cards continue to transport data.
Additional Supported Encapsulations
The Cisco 10000 series router also supports these traditional encapsulations:
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See the Cisco 10000 series router Software Configuration Guide for supported features for each of these protocols. See the Cisco IOS Release 12.0(S) documentation set for details about each protocol.
Internet Routing Protocols
Internet Routing Protocols exchange information about network reachability and routing between routers. Reachability refers to the number of hops required to get to a particular IP address.
The Cisco 10000 series router supports major Internet routing protocols, including those listed in the following sections.
Border Gateway Protocol
The most important protocol for an edge router is the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is the standard exterior gateway routing protocol used in the global Internet for interdomain routing. BGP performs routing between multiple autonomous systems and exchanges routing and availability information among BGP systems.
Internet Routing Protocols
In addition to BGP, the Cisco 10000 series router supports the following major protocols that run on connections to the Internet backbone:
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Quality of Service and Policy Features
Quality of service (QoS) refers to the ability of a network to provide better service to selected network traffic over various underlying technologies. In particular, QoS features provide better and more predictable network service by allowing you to configure priorities.
QoS Traffic Handling Priorities
The Cisco 10000 series router supports these QoS priorities for handling traffic:
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Traffic Shaping
Traffic Shaping is a mechanism used to control or modify the flow of traffic on an interface to avoid congestion, to meet a remote site's requirement, or to conform to a service rate that is provided on that interface.
The Cisco 10000 series router supports two types of Traffic Shaping:
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QoS Configuration Modes
The Cisco 10000 series router provides unique configuration modes and provides a user-friendly way of implementing several forms of QoS. The configuration mode commands include:
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Some specific QoS and access policy technologies you can apply using configuration modes include:
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QoS Policy Propagation on BGP
The Cisco 10000 series router supports QoS policy propagation by BGP (QPPB). This feature classifies packets by setting their IP precedence value based on BGP community lists, BGP autonomous system paths, and access lists. Other QoS features, such as CAR and WRED, use this classification to enforce their policies.
BGP provides a powerful, scalable means of using attributes such as community values to propagate destination-based packet classification policy throughout a large network. Propagation takes place in BGP routing updates. Packet classification policy can be propagated by BGP without writing and deploying complex access lists at each of many routers. BGP ensures that return traffic to customers is managed as premium traffic by the network.
Policy-Based Routing
Policy-Based Routing (PBR) provides a tool for expressing and implementing the forwarding or routing of data packets, based on the policies defined by network administrators. PBR is a way to have policy override on routing protocol decisions by selectively applying policies based on access list, packet size, or both. Network administrators can also use PBR to selectively change the IP ToS, IP precedence, and IP QoS Group fields for matching incoming packets on an interface.
Multicast Services
Multicast is an IP routing technique that propagates traffic from one source to a number of destinations, or from many sources to many destinations. Rather than sending one packet to each destination, one packet is sent to the multicast group identified by a single IP destination group address.
Multicast Routing Protocols
The Cisco 10000 series router supports the following IP multicast routing protocols:
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Other protocols and services that accommodate multicast routing on the Cisco 10000 series router include:
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Multicast Features
Cisco IOS Release 12.0(S) provides the following services for configuring multicast routes:
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Multiprotocol Label Switching
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a technology developed by Cisco that integrates Layer 3 network routing and Layer 2 data link switching. The result is a scalable, high-speed switching method. MPLS offers an effective form of traffic engineering on the Cisco 10000 series router.
MPLS is based on the concept of label swapping. Packets or cells are assigned short, fixed-length labels that tell the router how data should be forwarded. The Layer 3 header is analyzed once. At each hop, the forwarding decision is made by looking only at the value of the label. MPLS offers benefits in traffic management, scalability, and service flexibility.
MPLS Traffic Engineering
MPLS performs resource-based traffic engineering. MPLS directs traffic flows across a network based on the resource requirements of the traffic and the available resources in the network. The path selected for a traffic flow is the shortest one that meets the resource requirements of the traffic flow. Resource requirements include bandwidth, media, priority versus other flows, and so on.
MPLS traffic engineering includes the capability to gracefully recover from link or node failures that change the topology of the backbone. You do not have to manually configure the network devices to set up explicit routes. Instead, you can rely on the MPLS traffic engineering feature to interpret the backbone topology and adapt to the new set of constraints.
MPLS VPNs
MPLS can be used to create IP-based VPNs, with all of the value of traditional VPNs, including reduced costs and enhanced security. Because MPLS VPNs are created in Layer 3, they are more scalable, easier to configure, and easier to manage than Layer 2 VPNs.
MPLS VPNs offer:
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The VPN is encoded in the MPLS label applied to each incoming packet by the provider's edge router (such as the Cisco 10000 series router). Labeled packets can be forwarded across an ISP network using forwarding rules specific to particular labels. This design allows you to create multiple virtual networks on one network infrastructure.
Forwarding rules associated with the labels on packets prevent the packets from being forwarded outside the bounds of the virtual network. These rules can also allow packets to be forwarded between the virtual network and the Internet under controlled circumstances.
Security Features
The Cisco 10000 series router can take advantage of the full range of the Cisco IOS Release 12.0(S) features pertaining to data security. In addition, the Cisco 10000 series router offers features that specifically address the developing security problems known as denial of service (DoS) attacks. See Chapter 1, "Technology Overview," for more information.
The following standard security features are available on the Cisco 10000 series router:
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Performance Optimization Features
The performance advantage offered by the Cisco 10000 series router is a consequence of unique and patented technology in the PRE. See Chapter 2, "Cisco 10000 Series Router Technology," for more information about the new technology, including a description of the parallel express forwarding (PXF) network processors.
In addition to the advanced hardware, optimizations have been made to algorithms or internal processing paths. Unless otherwise noted, these optimizations do not affect configuration procedures and are not visible to a system administrator. However, these improvements have a large impact on performance.
Examples of performance improvements in the Cisco 10000 series router include:
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High Availability Features
The Cisco 10000 series router has significant features that ensure high availability:
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The hardware aspects of these features are described in Chapter 3, "PRE and Line Cards.".
Administration Features
The Cisco 10000 series router has a comprehensive set of configuration and management features. You can administer the Cisco 10000 series router from a local console or from a remote location using Telnet.
The following sections describe these features.
NetFlow Accounting
The Cisco 10000 series router supports gathering and exporting Version 5 and Version 8 record types to NetFlow FlowCollectors, and provides basic metering for a key set of applications, including network traffic accounting, usage-based network billing, network planning, and network monitoring capabilities.
Configuration Features
Key configuration features for the Cisco 10000 series router allows you to:
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Management Services
The following standard Cisco software services help you install, configure, and manage the Cisco 10000 series router:
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Simple Network Management Protocol
Cisco continually adds new Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) MIBs to those supported by the Cisco 10000 series router. For the latest information on supported MIBs, see the release notes for the Cisco 10000 series router.
MIBs can be downloaded from the Cisco FTP site at ftp://ftp.cisco.com/pub/mibs. If you need more information on MIBs, contact the Cisco TAC.
The Cisco 10000 series router supports these Cisco MIBs:
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The Cisco 10000 series router supports these industry MIBs:
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Service providers handle status checks in different ways. Many use network monitoring systems to report state changes. The reports, which are prepared at regular intervals by the polling of RMON, SNMP, and Syslog data, are used in network capacity planning and performance trend analysis. In addition, time stamps help a network administrator understand usage patterns.
Other systems help service providers with fault discovery and the identification of real-time status changes. These systems identify serious anomalies such as card/port loss, loss of signal, packet loss in excess of acceptable thresholds, and the failure of primary components in redundant systems. In response to serious problems, most service providers send technicians to inspect alarms.
The technicians use operating system tools, network management equipment, and testing tools to extract key information from various logs, and then they prepare their analysis based on the results. Most reporting systems are powerful enough to automatically generate reports, complete with statistics and graphs, and give the administrator an overview of such factors as traffic patterns and line reliability.
More Information
For more information about the Cisco 10000 series router, its features, and hardware, go to the Cisco 10000 Series Router Documentation Roadmap at the following URL:
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/aggr/10000/7880rm.htm
