What is SPA(Share Port Adaptor) and SIP?

[caobo1020]

These terms are confusing me? Can anyone explain them to me? thanks

[Leo Laohoo]

SPA is a hardware.  An example below.

       

In this image, the line card to the right is the SPA.  The two cards on the left slide in to the right.

[Leo Laohoo]

SIP is called Session Initiated Protol.  So it's a VOICE protocol.

[JohnTylerPearce]

Leo I think he's talking aout the ASR series.

As Leo said above, SPA is a piece of hardware, and stands for "Shared Port Adapter. SIP is a SPA Interface Processor which provides electrical termination for SPA cards in Cisco ASR series routers.

There are also full line cards you can buy for the ASR Series.

SPA Interface Processors come in SIP10 and SIP40, 10 being (10 Gigabit Bandwidth) and 40 being (40 Gigabit Bandwidth).

I hope this helps.

Just pay attention you get SPA cards that don't go over your SIP Bandiwidth.

[caobo1020]

Thanks John,

Yes, I mean ASR 9k. I also see MPA concept. Can we call parts on the left of picture posted by Leo MPA? I am still confused about the concepts. Can you post some pictures to explain this? In addition, what's the different between SPA and line card? I am so confused.

[JohnTylerPearce · Accepted solution]

Bo Cao,

The parts posted by Leo, includ the SPA (Shared Port Adapter) and SIP (SPA Interface Processor). The difference between the way, is that, the SPA cards, including ports in which you can use for network conenctivity, or various other resources such as offloading CEF (dCEF). The SPA Interface Processor, provides the physical electrical termination for these SPA cards.

For Example, so you want 10 1 Gigabit Ethernet ports, you would buy a SIP10 which has a maximum of (10 Gigabit Bandwidth).

WIth the Cisco ASR 9000 series, you have the same general idea, but have what's called Modular Line Cards, (Kinda like SIP), which you can install Modular Port Adapters into, which will include numerous ports for network usage.

Below is a picture, explaining what I have wrote above.

Below is a link explainging the Line Cards and to the Cisco ASR 9000 Series documentation for line cards.

http://www-tss.cisco.com/eservice/est-unified/router/asr9000/vho/fru/lc/lc_modular.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps9853/data_sheet_c78-663866.html

I hope this helps.

[caobo1020]

Thank you very much John.