Cisco Systems Extends IP/MPLS Leadership

Cisco Systems (www.cisco.com) today announced it is the offering Internet Protocol Multiprotocol Label Switching interprovider capabilities that allow service providers to work with each other and combine the capabilities of their individual networks, as a way to offer new services to their business customers.

These capabilities can also help decrease operating expenses and the risk of business downtime for these same customers.

Service providers that take full advantage of the new Cisco IP/MPLS interprovider solutions will deliver increased resiliency, multicast-based services such as streaming video, and extended virtual-private-network technologies to their enterprise business customers.

The ability for service provider networks to interoperate helps meet enterprise customer demands for increased voice, video and data services at all their remote locations, no matter the geographic area, as well as simplified network management capability, and effective service-level agreements (SLAs).

"Our global customers are increasingly demanding seamless connectivity for end-to-end services across network boundaries and most importantly, a single point-of-contact for these services rather than going to various providers for a solution," said Joe Fusco, director of IP Services, Infonet Services Corporation.

These capabilities bring service providers closer to providing customers with a transparent, globally interconnected interprovider network infrastructure, which reduces capital and operational expenditures with minimal investment.

Inter-AS multicast VPN allows service providers to provide enterprise customers scalable Layer 3 multicast services on an IP network that shares resources, on one or more physical networks. This enables service providers to provide customers with new services to create additional revenue streams.

Inter-AS Traffic Engineering allows service providers to traffic engineer between networks and regions, previously not available. It involves the configuration of a single tunnel at the headend as opposed to switching tunnels across each area that must be crossed, enabling service providers to deliver more robust, resilient and scalable networks.

Interprovider MPLS VPN over IP allows traditional MPLS-based Layer 3 VPN services to be delivered on a native IP network, simplifying connectivity across a single or multiple transit IP networks.

This functionality allows service providers more flexibility in building IP network architectures across domain boundaries, allowing additional revenue opportunities by building scalable Layer 3 VPN services, such as Web hosting, application hosting, interactive learning, electronic commerce and telephony service.