As part of an event held at the Computer History Museum here, Cisco showed a version of the CRS-1 on stage that used two line-card chassis and one fabric chassis. According to Cisco, up to eight fabric chassis and 72 line-card chassis can be connected to produce a single "virtual" router with a throughput of 92 Terabits per second.
However, only single-chassis systems will be available for the first customer shipments in July, according to Cisco, with multiple-chassis systems available three months later.
While the elaborate event -- complete with video linkups, a webcast, and a demonstration with service provider MCI that claimed to use the router to support a 40 Gbps Internet traffic link -- demonstrated the ability of Cisco's marketing power, even Chambers said that Cisco still must earn the respect of telecom service providers if it is to lead in the high-end router market.
Mike Volpi, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's routing technology group, said the CRS-1 was designed to meet the exacting needs of service providers, who are used to reliable equipment -- and who have shunned Cisco gear in the past because it wasn't designed with carrier-type availability in mind.
"Best effort doesn't work anymore," Volpi said. "We had to marry the heritage of the telephone network with the Internet [to produce the CRS-1]. Merging those two was very challenging."
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