The Cisco® ASR 9000 Series Route Switch Processor 440 (RSP 440) is a main system processor for Cisco ASR 9000 Series. It supports scalable, low-power, next-generation platforms, as well as required by today’s service provider networks. Cisco ASR 9000 Series Routers offer one of the industry’s highest-capacity edge platforms, optimized for aggregation of dense 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 100 Gigabit Ethernet connections. The Cisco ASR 9000 Series operates in a fully distributed fashion, meaning that all packet-forwarding decisions and actions take place on each individual line card. Cisco ASR 9000 Series line cards provide a flexible programming infrastructure with high-density Hierarchical Quality-of-Service (H-QoS) services, security, and integrated Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE). The distributed nature of the Cisco ASR 9000 Series also presents itself in the control plane. The distributed control plane facilitates scale in features such as Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) and Ethernet Operations, Administration, and Management (EOAM), which improve resilience and provide comprehensive instrumentation.
Cisco ASR 9000 Series routers bring the time-tested and robust carrier-class capabilities of Cisco IOS® XR Software to the Carrier Ethernet edge. The operating system supports true software process modularity. The capabilities of Cisco IOS XR Software allow each process to run in separate protected memory, including each routing protocol along with multiple instances of control, data, and management planes supported. The software also supports distributed route processing.