Cisco Delivers New Technologies for MPLS Guaranteed Bandwidth Services; Includes Industry's First QoS-enhanced MPLS Traffic Engineering Solution.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 10, 2001

Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today introduces several new standards-based software features including DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (DS-TE) and Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements to deliver Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) guaranteed bandwidth services. By deploying Cisco's MPLS solution for guaranteed bandwidth services, service providers now can offer voice and data services with point-to-point bandwidth guarantees using an MPLS network -- an industry first for connectionless networks.

"Cisco's DiffServ-aware TE solution will enable us to provide point-to-point guarantees across our 2.5 Gigabit per second packet network in France," says Herve Prigent, MPLS and Guaranteed Bandwidth project leader for TF-NGN and technical manager at CRIHAN. "We need these point-to-point guarantees for trunking application flows in support of metacomputing and remote control of large scientific equipment that previously was possible only with circuit-switched networks."

Cisco's widely deployed MPLS technology, enabled by Cisco IOS(R) Software, provides traffic engineering capabilities that facilitate efficient and reliable network operations while simultaneously optimizing network resource utilization and traffic performance. Cisco's MPLS solution also allows the construction of highly scalable and flexible MPLS Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that support multiple service levels.

"Today's announcement demonstrates the enormous potential of MPLS to enable service providers to offer such potential boons as guaranteed bandwidth services, guaranteed quality of service and virtual leased line services," says Paul Strauss, research manager for routers, International Data Corporation.

New Cisco MPLS Features Enable Service Providers to Deliver Guaranteed Bandwidth Services

Cisco now has expanded its widely deployed MPLS TE technology to support three new features: DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (DS-TE), Cisco AutoBandwidth allocator and Fast Reroute (FRR).

Combined with Cisco's new Quality of Service (QoS) DiffServ support (see related news announcement today -- "Cisco Announces Complete DiffServ Solution for End-to-End QoS") and existing MPLS TE capabilities, which have been available in Cisco IOS software since June 1999, DS-TE enables service providers to offer highly available, high throughput applications with strong QoS guarantees. DS-TE also enables service providers to perform constraint-based routing of traffic requiring bandwidth or improved delay or jitter characteristics, such as voice traffic, thus achieving the highest levels of quality of service end-to-end for that traffic. This feature is ideal for building services such as virtual leased lines for voice toll-bypass applications.

The new Cisco MPLS AutoBandwidth allocator, a software feature uniquely available from Cisco, automatically increases or decreases MPLS TE tunnel bandwidth based on measured traffic load. This automatic bandwidth adjustment feature makes it easy for service providers to configure and monitor bandwidth for MPLS traffic engineering tunnels, thereby providing more efficient utilization of available bandwidth in the network.

The Fast Reroute feature enables quick recovery in case of link failures, which prevents end-user applications from timing out and also prevents loss of data. MPLS traffic engineering with Fast Reroute decreases fail-over times competitive with SONET for link restoration, thus making MPLS networks a viable alternative for applications like voice trunking. The FRR feature is being extended to provide a full range of protection solutions for better network availability.

MPLS guaranteed bandwidth services will appeal to those service providers for whom network bandwidth is a relatively costly and valuable resource, such as those who lease bandwidth, and to service providers who offer premium classes of bandwidth services.

Availability

Cisco was first to deliver MPLS, beginning with Cisco IOS Software release 12.0 in 1998, and today supports IETF standard MPLS with Label Distribution Protocol (LDP). Cisco's MPLS solution for guaranteed bandwidth services is available now in Cisco IOS Software release 12.0(14)ST. Service providers interested in testing or deploying Cisco's new MPLS features should contact their local sales office. Additional information on Cisco's MPLS solutions and supported platforms can be found at www.cisco.com/go/mpls.

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information are available at www.cisco.com.

Note to Editors: Cisco, Cisco Systems, the Cisco Systems logo and Cisco IOS are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.