Stuart Corner
Saturday, 12 April 2008 03:52
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 4
This flexibility means is that many service that a carrier might want to provide on its network can be implemented in software in the ASR1000. The cost of developing that software will in part depend on the complexity and given that a bug propagated through an entire network of ASR1000s could have disastrous consequences - security and quality control will be paramount.
However with suitable high level application programming interfaces it is perfectly feasible that owners of ASR1000s could be provided with the tools to develop their own services.
The ASR1000 is just out of the blocks, but for an idea of what is to come look at what Cisco has just done for its older Integrated Services Router (ISR) designed for enterprise branch offices and of which more than one million have been sold.
Cisco has just announced the Application Extension Platform (AXP): a Linux based processing module that slots into the ISR that enables software developers "to create specific solutions for industry verticals and unified communications-based applications, and network and management utilities. They take advantage of the underlying security, mobility, WAN optimisation and unified communication capabilities provided by the Cisco ISR." It has been launched with a host of ready made applications.
Commenting on the development Light Reading said: "Possibly the most significant aspect of AXP, though, is the freedom for software companies to tap into IOS [the ISR's operating system] themselves. Cisco and Juniper Networks are starting to open their software after years of keeping everything locked up tight...Both companies are eager to talk about the possibilities of software vendors, or even customers, building their own applications to run on Cisco or Juniper cards."
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