why three flavours for line cards?

[tenaro.gusatu.novici]

What are the main differences between modular services cards, forwarding processor cards and label switch processor cards? I'm looking for the reason why completely new names were created, i.e. what new functions were added so that MSC name had to be changed to FP or LSP.

[Alexei Kiritchenko]

Hello Tenaro,

LSP, MSC and FP are different line cards to address discrete functional requirements of different positions in a network.

you can compare the cards' data sheets for differences

CRS-LSP

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps5763/data_sheet_c78-659947.html

CRS-FP140

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps5763/CRS-FP-140_DS.html

CRS-MSC

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps5763/CRS_MSC-140G.html

Regards,

/A

[Nicolas Fevrier]

Hi Tenaro,

in a nutshell, you can consider that

- the MSC-140 are cards with full feature set (64k queues per slot): they are perfect on a PE for customer facing links (CE-PE).

- the FP-140 are cards with additional features based on licenses and a lower QoS scalability (8 queues per physical port) : they can be used on the customer facing ports with no advanced QoS needs, but also for internet transit and on core facing links (PE-P)

- the LSP-140 are cards mainly targeted to switch labels: perfect P routers cards (P-PE or P-P links).

It's a very generic view, certainly disputable.

Cheers,

N.