The Cisco® Interface Flexibility (I-Flex) design combines shared port adapters (SPAs) and SPA interface processors (SIPs), taking advantage of an extensible design that helps enable service prioritization for voice, video, and data 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 Cisco I-Flex design maximizes connectivity options and offers superior service intelligence through programmable interface processors that deliver line-rate performance. Cisco I-Flex enhances speed-to-service revenue and provides a rich set of quality of service (QoS) features for premium service delivery while effectively reducing the overall cost of ownership. This data sheet contains the specifications for the Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet Shared Port Adapter (Figure 1).
The Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPA (SPA-2X1GE-SYNCE) is compatible with the Cisco 2-Port GigE SPA-v2 (SPA-2X1GE-V2) in terms of the supported capabilities. The Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPA also provides additional services, such as time and frequency distribution across Ethernet networks using the following technologies:
● Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE): Defined by ITU-T standards such as G.8261, G.8262, G.8264, and G.781, this technology uses the PHY Ethernet layer to transmit frequency to remote sites. SyncE provides one-to-one parity with SONET/SDH networks for timing capability with the advantages of Ethernet networks. In comparison to SONET/SDH, Ethernet networks are indifferent to timing; only network elements and Ethernet interfaces along the synchronization path must support SyncE. According to the SyncE requirements, exchange of QL (Quality Level) over Ethernet Synchronization Messaging Channel (ESMC), as well as Synchronization Status Messages (SSMs) for SONET/SDH interfaces are supported.
● IEEE Standard 1588-2008: This standard specifies a protocol known as Precision Time Protocol Version 2 (PTPv2), which is designed to provide precise timing and synchronization over packet-based infrastructures. PTP uses packet communication to synchronize two IEEE 1588-2008 clocks.
Service providers need to deliver timing efficiently to cell sites, base stations, Node-Bs, access equipment, as well as pre-aggregation, aggregation, and time-division multiplexing (TDM) equipment in their networks. Packet networks, being nonsynchronous by nature, pose a challenge to service providers who plan migration to an all-packet architecture. The requirements of such service providers include:
● Synchronous Ethernet within Metro Ethernet networks, as an example, for Mobile Backhaul networks
● Circuit Emulation Service (TDM over pseudowires)
● Packet-based frequency delivery to base stations or TDM pseudowire nodes
● Precise time distribution for performance measurement with IP Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or EOAM (for example, ITU-T Y.1731)
● Precise phase distribution for TDD base stations
Service providers who have migrated to packet networks often use an external TDM circuit to provide timing to remote network elements. Such external TDM circuits are an expensive solution when there are many remote network elements that need timing, especially for mobile operators who have thousands of cell sites and for whom timing is crucial for the radio interface. The Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPA with integrated synchronization capabilities deployed at such service providers will result in a simplified network topology and efficient device management of network elements.
Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPAs work with multiple applications, including:
● Layer 1 clock frequency distribution: In this mode, the Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPA can recover the received SyncE clock, synchronizing to a source traceable to PRC/PRS via ESMC/SSM, and use it to transmit physical layer frequency signals to the next node.
● Layer 2 and Layer 3 timing (time, phase, and frequency) are supported through IEEE 1588-2008 functions and protocol.
● External timing interfaces: These interfaces provide connections to external timing devices, such as Synchronization Supply Unit (SSU) or Building Integrated Timing Supply (BITS), and can be used as an input of a frequency clock source, or as an output to clean up accumulated wander on a system that receives clocking from the PHY layer.
● GPS timing interfaces: These interfaces can be used for external Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) or LORAN receiver devices as an input reference and can be selected as output references for some other equipment (for example, a PON with OLT, DSLAM, multiservice node, or test equipment). The interfaces support:
◦ Connections to external frequency, phase, and time sources
◦ Translation of the received clock to IEEE 1588-2008 messages
◦ Transmission to external equipment of recovered frequency, phase, and time
● IEEE 1588-2008 may be deployed in either Direct SPA mode (using the Gigabit Ethernet interfaces of the SPA) or Service SPA mode along with line cards (that is, using any other interface in the host equipment). The Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPA supports the ordinary clock (either as primary or secondary) and boundary clock modes.
● Timing signal translation: This feature provides translation of physical-layer timing signals into PTP messages, or the reverse, allowing a mixture of the timing options in the same network, depending on remote-node timing support.
The Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPAs are available on the Cisco 7600 Series Routers and offer benefits of network scalability with lower initial costs and ease of upgrades. The salient features of the SPA are as listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Features and Benefits
Product Specifications
Table 2 provides specifications for the Cisco 2-Port Gigabit Synchronous Ethernet SPA.
Table 2. Product Specifications
To place an order, visit the Cisco Ordering Home Page and refer to Table 3.
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