Cisco Line Cards

Data Sheet

Cisco 12000 Series Three-Port Gigabit Ethernet Line Card

Providing Service Providers with High-Throughput and Cost-Effective Connectivity

Cisco^® offers the Cisco 12000 Series Three-Port Gigabit Ethernet Line Card (3-Port GbE) to address the needs for interconnecting devices within points of presence (POPs) at gigabit rates. The Cisco 3-Port GbE Line Card is the second Ethernet-based product for the Cisco 12000 Series, providing a cost-effective, high-bandwidth solution. This compelling solution is sought by Internet service providers (ISPs) with large Web hosting equipment such as servers, caches, edge routers, Gigabit Ethernet switches, and so on, who are looking for cost-effective links between their Cisco 12000 Series Routers and other network equipment.

This new line card, depicted in Figure 1, can be configured with up to three of the following interface types: a 1000BASE-SX multimode fiber interface with up to a 550-meter reach, a 1000BASE-LH single-mode fiber interface with up to a 10-km reach, or a 1000BASE-ZX single-mode fiber interface with up to a 70-km reach.

Feature Summary

Packet Layer

Ethernet Upper Layers

Physical Layer

Software Features

Table 1   Software Features for the Cisco 12000 Series Three-Port Gigabit Ethernet Line Card

Features and Benefits

Table 2   Features and Benefits Summary for the Three-Port Gigabit Ethernet Line Card

Cisco 3-Port GbE Line Card Features Flexible and Expandable Packet Buffer Memory

Depending on the network topology, sufficient buffering must be available on Layer 3 line cards to satisfy queuing requirements for the network at gigabit rates. The largest queuing requirement would be 120 MB of memory. The Cisco 12000 Series line cards implement the buffering memory with SDRAM modules, giving users the flexibility to install the requirements for their applications and to upgrade their requirement when necessary. The Cisco 12000 Series Gigabit Ethernet line cards provide 256-MB and 512-MB SDRAM options. Other features include:

The packet memory option on the Cisco 3-Port GbE Line Card is different from some existing line cards. The memory on the 3-Port GbE Line Card runs at 100 MHz, versus 50 MHz for some existing line cards. (See Table 3.)

Cisco 12000 Series Gigabit Ethernet Line Cards Feature Flexible and Expandable Routing Table Memory

These line cards support Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF). This technique implements a distributed architecture within the platform whereby each line card can make its own decision in forwarding packets in the network. Away from the data path, the route processor card maintains the routing tables and transports a full image of its routing table to every line card.

As the number of networks that make up the Internet grows, the number of entries in the routing tables will grow as well. The Cisco 12000 Series Gigabit Ethernet line cards implement an expandable routing table with the addition of DRAM modules, which provide flexibility to the user. The expandable DRAM options range from 128 MB to 256 MB. The forwarding table can accommodate up to one million forwarding entries. (See Table 4.)

Switch Card Requirement

At minimum, full bandwidth fabric cards must be installed in your Cisco 12000 Series Router (one clock scheduler and three switch fabric cards).

Specifications

Physical

Environmental

Regulatory Compliance

Safety

Network Equipment Building Systems Level 3

Electromagnetic Emissions Certification

Immunity

LEDs

Connector

Network Management

System Feature

Optical Power Budget

Table 5   Minimum Long-Haul Link Power Budget

Ordering and Availability

The Cisco 12000 Series Three-Port Gigabit Ethernet Line Card is orderable now.

Special Notes

1. When filling in the Cisco 3-Port GbE Line Card sales order, do not use the following Cisco 7500 GBIC components: GBIC-SX, GBIC-SX=, GBIC-LX, GBIC-LX=.

2. When employing the Cisco 12008 or 12012 with Cisco 3-Port GbE Line Card, please ensure that the system is configured with full bandwidth (one clock scheduler card and three switch fabric cards).

3. 3GE-GBIC-SC(=) and the GBIC part numbers can be ordered individually as spares.

4. MPLS-enabled Ethernet frames that are smaller than 2450 bytes can be switched without fragmentation. From 12.0.22S, this 2450 bytes size was extended to support 9180 bytes.

Service and Support

Cisco Systems offers a wide range of service and support offerings for its service provider customers. Cisco has earned the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry by providing the world-class service and support necessary to deploy, operate, and optimize service provider networks. Whether the goal is speed to market, maximizing network availability, or enhancing customer satisfaction and retention, Cisco is committed to the success of its service provider customers.

For More Information

For more information about Cisco service and support programs and benefits, go to:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/support/index.html

For more information about the Cisco 12000 Series, visit Cisco at:

http://www.cisco.com/go/12000 or contact your account representative today.

1 From 12.0.22S; older releases support frame sizes of up to 2450 bytes.