While cloud is all about abstracting networking and compute resources, it still relies on those resources to function. It’s a fact that networking vendor Cisco is banking on as it announces a set of new products as part of its Cloud Connected Solutions portfolio.
ISR G2 router enhancements
The new products include enhancements to the ISR G2 router, a new cloud services router and cloud application optimization technology for Cisco’s WAN acceleration platform.
“With the ASR1000 in the data center, the ISR G2 in the branch and the Cloud Services Router in the cloud we have a set of platforms, with consistent manageability to deploy end to end services,” Praveen Akkiraju, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Services Routing Technology Group, said in a press conference announcing the new technologies.
The ISR G2was originally announced by Cisco back in October of 2009, and is the company’s leading branch router technology. Akkiraju explained that the ISR G2 will now be able to benefit from Cisco’s Cloud Connector technology that provides enhanced visibility and connectivity with cloud services.
“The cloud connector is a component of software that runs on the ISR G2 platform that interacts with any cloud service to optimize the user experience” Akkiraju said.
Cisco is also aiming to improve traffic visibility on both the ISR G2 platform as well as the ASR router platform with new application visibility and control (AVC) technology. The idea behind AVC is that it goes beyond just the packet to give administrators a control point for application data flows across the network.
While the ISR G2 and the ASR platforms are physical routers, Cisco is now also making a cloud based virtual router available, as well. Akkiraju explained that the Cloud Services Router (CSR) 1000v is essentially Cisco’s enterprise routing platform in the cloud. The idea is to enable enterprise users to connect directly into the cloud with the same level of security they have connecting from a branch office into a data center. Other use cases for the CSR 1000v include enabling the concept of a virtual private cloud.
WAN acceleration, speed and latency
Speed and latency matter more than ever when connecting to and enabling cloud services. To that end, Cisco is enhancing its wide area application services (WAAS), WAN optimization and acceleration platform with AppNav.
“AppNav is a traffic steering mechanism,” Akkiraju said. “It helps our enterprise customers deploy scalable private clouds.”
AppNav improves traffic latency. WAAS with AppNav can be deployed on the new CSR 1000v router or on Cisco’s hardware based WAAS appliances and router modules.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
