Cisco Introduces Next-Gen Integrated Services Routers

Cisco Introduces Next-Gen Integrated Services Routers

The Cisco ISR G2 helps businesses and service providers simplify and scale delivery of on-demand, networked business services like video and collaborative applications at branch offices.

Thursday, October 22, 2009: Cisco today introduced its Borderless Networks architecture and a five-phase plan designed to help deliver services and applications to anyone, anywhere, on any device, at anytime. As the first proof point of its Borderless Networks architecture, Cisco announced the second generation of its Integrated Services Router, the ISR G2.



The Cisco ISR G2 helps businesses and service providers simplify and scale delivery of on-demand, networked business services like video and collaborative applications at branch offices. It serves as a natural part of the Cisco Borderless Networks Architecture, which combines the company’s routing, switching, wireless and security technologies into a more tightly integrated networking infrastructure that allows businesses to embrace the growing use of video, collaborative applications and other networked services more efficiently and deliver them across their enterprises.

With Borderless Networks, information technology managers can more easily manage, scale, govern and protect networks while tightening the synergy between users, devices, applications and business processes.

The Cisco ISR G2 is said to offer as much as five times the performance of its predecessor, the Cisco ISR.

With business video adoption expected to climb to 77.6 per cent by 2012 (Cisco VNI Research), and with video proven to play a key role in enabling business innovation and better customer service, the video-ready architecture and new video digital signal processors in the ISR G2 will be key to delivering medianet capabilities essential to the Borderless Networks experience.

Borderless Networks solutions decouple hardware and software so that virtual services can be remotely deployed and managed. The ISR G2 implements this with the innovative Services Ready Engine, which lets businesses dynamically deploy services in branches without costly onsite support. The ISR G2 services module comes with up to 1TB of on-board storage, which is useful for video surveillance deployments, and supports up to seven times the performance of the previous network modules.

The Cisco Borderless Networks Architecture delivers Cisco EnergyWise across multiple platforms to empower organisations to better manage their power consumption and costs through increased visibility and policy-based controls. ISR G2 extends this capability to the branch office with a new family of integrated EnergyWise compliant switch modules and slot-based power control.

The Cisco Borderless Networks Architecture breaks down boundaries between location, device, and application. As applications and services are increasingly offered and consumed from beyond the enterprise perimeter, a new approach will be required. The ISR G2 enables premise-based services while extending mobility, security, and performance to users, no matter where the user or application is located.

Brett Galloway, senior vice president, wireless, security and routing technology group, Cisco, said, "Networking has always been at the core of Cisco's business. We have a long history of excellence and innovation in networking and we continue to bring customers new capabilities, including new technologies enabling video, collaboration, virtualisation and mobility. Our ISR G2 router line significantly increases our customers ability to capitalise on these key business and technology trends. Our core networking business remains as strategic and as vitally important to us, as it does to those we serve.”