Data/Voice/Video Integration Strategy
Facilitates Reduced Communications Costs, Improved Performance and Simplified Management for Enterprise Customers

The first phase of a data/voice/video integration strategy that will ultimately encompass all aspects of enterprise and service provider infrastructures. Aimed at enterprise wide-area networking, today's announcement includes a systems and technology strategy, new products and future product directions. With these new capabilities, Cisco's enterprise customers can integrate their wide-area voice and data communications for cost savings, increased performance and seamless communications management.

The strategy includes details of how Cisco and AHC can help users network and interoperate voice over Frame Relay, voice over ATM and voice over IP from smaller access locations to larger backbone sites and across private leased and public service infrastructures.

With voice over ATM and voice over Frame Relay becoming mainstream, Cisco and AHC now has the solution that takes advantage of these technologies without forcing users to build separate networks.

The circuit emulation module for the Catalyst 5500 family complements the circuit emulation capabilities on the LightStream 1010R ATM switch and Cisco 7200 series routers, supporting up to four structured T1/T3 or E1/E3 circuits over a T3/E3 or OC-3 trunk into an ATM network. Circuit emulation allows legacy systems not supporting IP, Frame Relay or ATM protocols, such as PBXs and legacy TDM systems, to be transported over emerging broadband ATM infrastructures.

Systems and Technology Strategy

AHC provided Cisco solutions as an integrator. Cisco's strategy is built upon ATM and IP in the network core with Tag Switching providing integration, scalability and performance across both technologies in seamless networks. (Cisco demonstrated voice over a Tag-Switched IP/ATM network at Telecom Geneva in September and at Networld+Interop in Atlanta earlier this month.) At the network edge, voice is optionally compressed and then adapted from its native PCM into standard IP or Frame Relay packets or ATM cells. It is then transported across Cisco's wide variety of user-to-network technologies into the backbone infrastructure. A Cisco backbone is not required, but will yield more consistent voice quality because of the advanced quality of service (QoS) and traffic management capabilities within Cisco backbone systems.

Cisco's technology strategy for data/voice/video integration is to use only standards-based implementations where available, and standards-proposed implementations where the standards are under development.

Other strategic technologies implemented by Cisco are voice over IP, in which Cisco is taking an active role toward standardization, and voice activity detection (VAD), a technique for reducing voice bandwidth by halting traffic generation during silence. Cisco is also taking a leadership role in the development of standards and ultimate implementation of full QoS capabilities over IP, which would then be introduced as a software upgrade to most Cisco systems.

Cisco recently introduced additional new products and capabilities to address the need for integrating data/voice/video traffic on customer networks. Designed for regional and branch office locations, the Cisco 3800 access concentrator is a multiservice Frame Relay and ATM integrated access solution in a single platform. Announced earlier this year, Cisco 7200 series routers and Cisco LightStream 1010 ATM switches support T1/E1 circuit emulation modules. These new cards concentrate multiple circuit emulation streams onto a single broadband link for transport across an ATM network. The Cisco StrataCom R IGXTM also supports efficient, high-quality voice connectivity to digital PABX through standard interfaces. This platform supports voice compression, voice activity detection, standard voice switching, fax and modem services and voice service modules. Circuit-switched data services on the Cisco IGX include transparent data service, flexible clocking and repetitive pattern suppression-circuit data compression.

The new multiservice, wide-area network (WAN) access products that will help corporate enterprise customers reduce costs, deploy new business applications and improve network performance. It is part of a five-phase, open systems and technology strategy designed to help users integrate data, voice and video - from smaller access locations to larger backbone sites and across private leased-line and public service infrastructures. Initially it will give customers the ability to reduce costs by avoiding long-distance toll charges and start consolidating their voice and data network infrastructures. In the future, it will enable them to take advantage of new business applications such as intranet/Internet telephony, Web call centers and desktop video. The strategy encompasses voice over Frame Relay, voice over ATM and voice over IP. The greatest immediate return on data/voice/video integration in the corporate enterprise network is in the WAN, where costs are highest and alternatives abound.

Cisco MC3810 Seamlessly Integrates Data, Voice and Video

The Cisco MC3810 is the newest member of the Cisco MC3800 series of multiservice access concentrators. It combines Cisco IOS(TM) software routing functionality with compressed, switched voice and clear-channel video across popular Frame Relay and ATM services. (See accompanying release, "Cisco Introduces Newest Member of MC3800 Multiservice Access Concentrator Family.") The MC3810 connects to any standard private branch exchange (PBX) or videoconferencing system and is interoperable with all other Cisco internetworking devices.

Using voice compression, the MC3810 transports voice across enterprise infrastructures at a fraction of the bandwidth and cost of traditional multiplexers or Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) switches. The MC3810, which operates on facilities from 56 kilobits per second (kbps) to 2.048 megabits per second (Mbps), provides maximum flexibility and investment protection, as networking requirements grow.

"The Cisco MC3810 combines data, voice and video in an efficient, standards-based way, at a much lower cost than previous-generation, simple multiplexers," said Bill Hicks, senior product manager for internetworking at Sprint.

Cisco Offers Complete Portfolio for Data/Voice/Video Integration

The new multiservice WAN access solutions announced today complement Cisco's existing array of edge devices, which can interface with telephony systems and transport traffic into the backbone infrastructure. These multiservice WAN access devices include MC3800 multiservice access concentrators, Catalyst(R) 5500 series LAN switches, LightStream(R) 1010 and Cisco IGX ATM switches and Cisco 7xx, 3600 and 7200 series routers.

Transporting multiservice traffic across a Cisco backbone will yield more consistent voice quality than other backbone infrastructures because of the advanced quality-of-service and traffic management capabilities supported by Cisco backbone systems. These include the Cisco StrataCom BPX(R) ATM switch, the Cisco 7500 router series and the Cisco 12000 series of gigabit switch routers.

For example, new Cisco IOS software features such as Committed Access Rate (CAR) allow network managers to specify policies that partition network traffic into multiple priority levels or classes of service (CoS). The network manager can define up to six classes using the three precedence bits in the "type of service" field in the IP header. (See "Cisco Enables Premium Services for Internet Service Providers Worldwide" at http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/146/2019.html.) Cisco now is extending these scalable service provider features to the corporate enterprise.

Additionally, Cisco IOS(tm) capabilities such as Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) provide class and flow-based flexible bandwidth allocation and delay bounds across and IP network, while Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED) provides policy-based congestion avoidance techniques to give preferential treatment to premium-class traffic.

These new capabilities for IP quality of service complement and map to the extensive ATM QoS features found on the Cisco StrataCom BPX and LightStream 1010 ATM switches.

Multiservice Networking

Multiservice networking is emerging as a strategically important issue for enterprise and public service provider infrastructures alike. The proposition of multiservice networking is the combination of all types of communications, all types of data, voice, and video over a single packet-cell-based infrastructure. The benefits of multiservice networking are reduced operational costs, higher performance, greater flexibility, integration, and control, and faster new application and service deployment.

Multiservice networking complements virtual private network (VPN) offerings from service providers. By combining multiservice capabilities with VPN services, enterprise network managers can quickly and flexibly deploy tactical, project-based networks that would have traditionally required multiple, separate networks for data, voice and video.

A key issue often confused in multiservice networking is the degree to which Layer 2 switching and services are mixed with Layer 3 switching and services. An intelligent multiservice network fully integrates both, taking advantage of the best of each; most multiservice offerings in the marketplace are primarily Layer 2-based, from traditional circuit switching technology suppliers.

Industry analysts believe that multiservice networks will become the primary vehicle for business communications needs over the next four years.

Data/Voice/Video Integration

The enterprise customers' interest in data voice video integration through multiservice networking is fueled by planning requirements in the short, medium, and long term. In the short term, the imperatives are cost savings and increased budget leverage, resulting from the exponential growth of intranet applications without commensurate budget growth. In the medium term, the enablement of key emerging business applications is the key requirement, as business development and differentiation increasingly rely on state-of-the-art IT implementation. And in the long term, complexity reduction and technology convergence are the most important planning requirements as mixed-technology, complicated environments become unsupportable at a reasonable cost as they grow.

Demand for Data/Voice/Video Integration

Multiservice networking brings cost savings and increased budget leverage in the short term by allowing some portion of the static, yet large, telecom budget to be reduced and cross utilized into the data/MIS budget. This scenario is immediately achieved by integration in the WAN, where costs are highest and alternatives abound. The challenge is to integrate while building the foundation for emerging requirements. The answer is to leverage standards-based, rather than proprietary, technologies.

Multiservice networking enables key emerging business applications in the medium term by inherently supporting any type of traffic, and therefore, any type of networking requirement of applications. Building on the success of intranet and web-based applications within the enterprise, emerging business applications such as integrated voice/e-mail messaging, cyber call center agents, and desktop videoconferencing will require real-time, near-real time, and non-real time communications to be mixed in a reliable way, which can only be achieved by a true multiservice network.

Voice Budget Leverage

Multiservice networking satisfies long-term goals of complexity reduction and strategic systems convergence by being the ubiquitous, common information infrastructure of the enterprise, being able to carry any kind of traffic, and being based on common, standards-based IP and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technologies.

The Importance of Voice over IP

Of the key emerging technologies for data, voice, and video integration, voice over IP is arguably very important. The most quality-of-service (QoS) sensitive of all traffic, voice is the true test of the engineering and quality of a network. Demand for Voice over IP is leading the movement for QoS in IP environments, and will ultimately lead to use of the Internet for fax, voice telephony, and videotelephony services. And Voice over IP will ultimately be a key component of the migration of telephony to the LAN infrastructure.

Multiservice Networking Solutions

As the pioneer of the Internet and IP infrastructures, and a leader in ATM, Frame Relay, traffic management, and QoS, Cisco is uniquely capable of building intelligent multiservice networks, and is making them a reality today. Not just transport for higher level services, a Cisco multiservice network is an integral, intelligent part of any IT infrastructure. A Cisco multiservice network provides the flexibility to adapt to changing business and application requirements. It provides the efficiency to result in cost savings and performance improvement, and it provides the integration to reduce the complexity and maximize the availability of corporate communications globally.

From data switching and routing to voice switching, from low-speed access to broadband backbone, from Fast Ethernet to ATM, a Cisco multiservice network is an intelligent business enablement system.

Five Phase Multiservice Strategy

Open Multiservice Architecture Voice and Video

Data Voice Video Integration Strategy

Cisco's data voice video integration strategy is built upon five phases of product and technology enhancement, all based on industry standards and open application programming interfaces (APIs). Beginning with two phases of WAN integration, the strategy adds LAN/WAN gateway, campus metropolitan-area network (MAN) integration, and ultimately directory linkage to policy-based, end-to-end call management. In each phase, QoS, call management, infrastructure integration, and infrastructure management capabilities are added, building what is ultimately the industry's only open multiservice architecture.

In the first and second WAN phases of the strategy, currently being delivered, users are able to network and interoperate over Frame Relay, ATM, or IP, from small access to large backbone sites, across private leased and public service infrastructures. ATM and IP are integrated in the network core with interoperability, scalability, and performance across both technologies. At the network edge, voice is optionally compressed and then adapted from its native analog or pulse code modulation (PCM) into standard IP or Frame Relay packets, or ATM cells. Video is integrated at the edge through circuit-emulation connections over ATM or through packet flows over IP. All traffic is then transported across Cisco's wide variety of WAN access technologies into the backbone infrastructure. Transport of multiservice traffic across a Cisco backbone will yield more consistent voice quality because of the advanced QoS and traffic management capabilities within Cisco backbone systems. Of course, by adhering to standards, Cisco multiservice products at the edge can interoperate with non-Cisco backbones as well.

Open Multiservice Architecture

Cisco's open multiservice architecture for data voice video integration uses only standards-based implementations where available, standards-proposed implementations where the standards are under development, and open multivendor-developed APIs. Key standards implemented and under development are G.729 (conjugate structure algebraic code excited linear prediciton [CS-ACELP] voice compression at 8 kbps per channel), FRF 11/12 (voice over Frame Relay, call setup, segmentation), RFC 1483 (multiprotocol over ATM), RFC 1490 (multiprotocol over Frame Relay), Resource Reservation Protocol, (RSVP, QoS over IP for data flows), and H.323 (interoperable videoconferencing over IP).

Other strategic technologies implemented include voice over IP, in which Cisco is taking a leadership role toward standardization by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and voice activity detection (VAD), a technique for reducing voice bandwidth by halting traffic generation during silence. Cisco is also taking a leadership role in the development of standards and ultimate implementation of full QoS capabilities over IP, which will incrementally be delivered across each phase of the multiservice strategy.

MultiVoice Product Family Overview

MultiVoice solutions deliver voice, data, and fax services over a single, unified network infrastructure. This is the only solution on the market to offer "Absolute" Quality of Service across the complete connection—from the access area through the core to the public network—providing toll-quality voice, video, and real-time data.

MultiVoice is unique to the industry because of its ability to utilize the vast array of technology in the Ascend portfolio including powerful backbone switches, access products, IP Navigator software, and the Navis family of management applications. MultiVoice applications address Voice-over-IP, Voice-over-Frame, Voice-over-ATM, and voice interoperability between IP, Frame Relay, ATM, and SS7 Carrier Signaling Services.

The MultiVoice for the MAX enables voice traffic to be sent and received over IP-based networks such as the Internet, private intranets, and extranets. It offers an integrated Voice-over-IP solution that is high quality, high performance, cost justifiable, scalable, and based on international standards.