Cisco^® ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers provide a Software Defined WAN platform that aggregates multiple WAN connections and network services including encryption and traffic management, and forward them across WAN connections at line speeds from 2.5 to 200 Gbps. The routers contain both hardware and software redundancy in an industry-leading high-availability design.

The latest additions to the Cisco ASR 1000 Series are the Cisco ASR 1002-HX Router and the Cisco ASR 1001-HX Router. Both new routers support up to 100 Gbps in a 2-Rack-Unit (2RU) and 60 Gbps in a 1-Rack-Unit (1RU) form factor, respectively. The ASR 1002-HX has 8 built-in 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) ports and 8 1 GE ports, with the Ethernet Port Adapter (EPA) slot for expansion. The ASR 1001-HX has 4 built-in 10 GE ports, 8 1 GE ports, and 4 configurable 10 GE or 1 GE ports. The Cisco ASR 1000 Series Route Processor 3 is the newest addition to the modular control plane engines in the Cisco ASR 1000 Series. The Route Processor 3 adds more options for higher performance, memory, and storage to the ASR 1000 Series.

The Cisco ASR 1000 Series supports Cisco IOS^® XE Software, a modular operating system with modular packaging, feature velocity, and powerful resiliency. The Cisco ASR 1000 Series Embedded Services Processors (ESPs), which are based on Cisco Flow Processor technology, accelerate many advanced features such as crypto-based access security; Network Address Translation (NAT), thread defense with Cisco Zone-Based Firewall (ZBFW), Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE), and a diverse set of Data-Center-Interconnect (DCI) features. These services are implemented in Cisco IOS XE Software without the need for additional hardware support.

Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers sit at the edge of your enterprise data center or large office connecting to the WAN, as well as in service provider Points Of Presence (POPs). The Cisco ASR 1000 Series will benefit the following types of customers:

• Enterprises experiencing explosive network traffic as mobility, cloud networking, and video and collaboration usage increase: Cisco ASRs consolidate these various traffic streams and apply traffic management and redundancy properties to them to maintain consistent performance among enterprise sites and cloud locations.
• Network service providers needing to deliver high-performance services, such as DCI and branch-office server aggregation, to business customers: Service providers can also use the multiservice routers to deploy hosted and managed services to business and multimedia services to residential customers.
• Existing Cisco 7200 Series Router (end-of-sale) customers looking for simple migration to a new multiservice platform that delivers greater performance with the same design.

The Cisco ASR 1000 Series Routers carry a modular yet integrated design, so network operators can increase their network capacity and services without a hardware upgrade. With flexibility in the number of connections, speed maximums, and price, you don't have to under- or overprovision for any network location.

Alternatively, you also have the option to buy "-X" and "-HX" models, so you can increase throughput by simply purchasing upgrade licenses as you grow to increase your network speed dynamically.