Menlo Park, California-based Cisco Systems Inc has announced CiscoFusion, a new internetworking architecture intended to merge router-based networks with switching technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode, local network switches and ‘virtual local networks’. The company has also revealed a number of products for the architecture. CiscoFusion uses Asynchronous Transfer Mode as a core data-switching engine, with local network switches bringing high-speed local networks and dedicated local networks to the desktop. The key elements of the architecture are intelligent multilayer local network switching, and the segregation of route processing and switching. Multilayer local network switching – claimed as a first entails local network switches switching at Open Systems Interconnection layer 3 (routing as needed) as well as layer 2 (bridging). This is said to solve the problems of moves, adds and changes by organising switched internetworks into ‘virtual local networks’ – a layer 2 overlay implemented with local network switches around Asynchronous Transfer Mode, says the company. The division of route processing from switching hives off route calculation to ‘route processors’ residing in routers or other devices such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode switches; these processors will periodically distribute path information to the multilayer local network switches, enabling them to make appropriate switching decisions. This approach improves the stability and security of routers and the speed and per-port value of local network switches, says Cisco. Products to be rolled out over the next year in support of CiscoFusion include an Asynchronous Transfer Mode router interface and Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch, which are planned to be combined to make the first system for Asynchronous Transfer Mode-to-local network backbones; the Cisco 7010, a new, five-slot addition to its 7000 multiprotocol router range; a silicon switch processor, promised to double and more the Cisco 7000 family speed to 250,000 packets per second; and Catalyst, an intelligent Ethernet/FDDI switch for client-server workgroups – the first product resulting from the technology Cisco obtained through its acquisition of Crescendo Communications Inc last September.
