San Jose, California-based Cisco Systems Inc has been outlining its future plans for providing increased Integrated Services Digital Network functionality to its range of routers and has announced a new member of its 4000 family that is to be given ISDN Basic Rate Interface options. This model, called the 4500, is being pitched as a modular, mid-range model for computation-intensive wide-area network applications, specifically targetted at ISDN users. The product is essentially identical to the company’s existing 4000 router but with the addition of a faster processor. The 4500 is based around Santa Clara, California-based Integrated Device Technology Inc’s MIPS Technology Inc-licensed R4600 100MHz 64-bit RISC processor. The company says use of this processor results in a more than threefold performance increase over the 4000. It will use the same Cisco Internetworking Operating System software as the 4000 and can also accept the latter’s network processor modules. Next quarter, Cisco is to launch a new option – also available for the 4000 – which incorporates four or eight ISDN Basic Rate Interfaces. These are to cost $4,800 and $8,000 respectively. Also to be incorporated is the company’s Protocol Translation feature, previously only available for Cisco Systems’ Communication Servers: this is designed to facilitate communication from remote terminals needing to connect to, say, an Internet Protocol network over X.25.
X.25 Packet Payload incorporation
To further optimise wide area network communications, the company says it will also incorporate X.25 Packet Payload Compression and Link Compression. The 4500 is due to ship next month, costing $9,200 in its base configuration. In addition to the new router, Cisco has also been adding to the ISDN options for its existing range of products. The company says that an ISDN Primary Rate Interface will be added to its high-end 7000 router, as promised at the router’s launch. This will take the form of a software option for the MultiChannel Interface Processor, the company’s high-density wide area network access board for the 7000 family: this, says Cisco, will give users the option of switching between channelised leased line services and ISDN. Each MultiChannel Processor board will support either one or two Primary Rate Interfaces, says Cisco, enabling users to run up to 240 ISDN channels, representing connections for up to 240 remote sites, from each seven-slot 7000. Cisco says the enhancements will be available during next quarter for the US and Japan, the first quarter of next year for Europe and elsewhere. Additionally, the company says that in October it is planning to launch a new model of the Cisco 2500, specifically pitched at entry-level ISDN applications. The Ethernet model, with one Ethernet and one ISDN Basic Rate Interface port, is to cost $2,200, while the corresponding Token Ring configuration is to be priced at $2,700. And Cisco says it is planning to enhance its Internetwork Operating System before the end of the year to support dial-on-demand routing of Banyan Vines and DECnet/OSI; dial-on-demand is currently only supported for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol Novell IPX and AppleTalk. In order to attract small office users, the company also says the InterNetwork Operating System will be enhanced to support multiple X.25 virtual circuits over a single ISDN B-Channel. Cisco Systems has installed a multimedia version of its on-line service Cisco Information On-Line, which uses standard hypertext to present technical support information that combines graphics, audio and video elements. The service will function in the same way as the previous, character-based service, which is now called CIO Classic. Cisco says it will continue to support CIO Classic for those users that still desire it. CIO is found on the World Wide Web of the Internet, and uses standard transport protocols. A client Web application is needed in order to access the service, that the company says is available immediately.
