New Catalyst Products Bring 5G and Accelerated SASE to the WAN Edge

Cisco is expanding its Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms Family and Catalyst Cellular Gateways to help customers build a resilient, reliable digital footprint that spans data center, cloud and branch deployments. The new announcements extend the both the Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms Family and Cellular Gateways to include a new 5G Cellular Gateway, a new virtual CPE edge device that can host Cisco or third party VNFs, as well as extensions to the Catalyst 8500 aggregation and Catalyst 8300 branch portfolio.

Whether you’re streaming video, hosting a conference call, checking emails or accessing other critical business applications, you need secure, seamless connectivity no matter where these applications are hosted. These new Cisco Catalyst Edge Platforms accelerate  multicloud journeys with choices that include on-premises and cloud-delivered security. All Cisco Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms contain the latest Cisco Trust Anchor technology, a secure core providing a hardware-embedded root of trust for enhanced device authenticity and data privacy.

Cisco Catalyst 8500L: 1/10G optimized WAN Edge Aggregation

The Cisco Catalyst 8500L is a new model within the 8500 series targeted to meet entry-level 1G/10G aggregation use cases. It’s powered by twelve x86 cores and up to 64GB memory to support secure connectivity for thousands of remote sites and millions of stateful NAT and Firewall sessions.  The Catalyst 8500L provides ultra-fast IPsec crypto performance and advanced flow-based forwarding to keep up with the demands of today’s high-speed, secure connectivity.

Like the multicloud journey in prior years, the emerging need to support remote workers is creating further architecture shifts in customer deployments. Today, businesses find that establishing aggregation sites at either core locations or colocations helps them own the first mile on their branch and remote worker journeys to the internet and other software defined cloud interconnects (SDCI). The Catalyst 8500L comes in a slim 1RU form factor that can be easily racked and stacked in a colocation or core site to support more distributed architectures.

Cisco Catalyst 8200: Expanding the WAN Edge Branch Portfolio

The Catalyst 8200 Series Edge Platforms complement the Catalyst 8300 launched in October to address diverse connectivity needs for branch deployments. The Cisco Catalyst 8200 supports 8 CPU cores for high performance packet forwarding, 8Gb of default RAM to run the latest security services, and Intel® QuickAssist Technology (QAT) for hardware-accelerated performance.  The Catalyst 8200 Series gives up to 1Gbps of aggregate forwarding throughput, which is double the performance of its ISR 4300 predecessor.

The Catalyst 8200 platform offers modular access with a diverse set of WAN connectivity choices via shared NIM/PIM interfaces with the Catalyst 8300 and ISR 4000 series. On-premises integrated security or cloud-delivered security solutions are critical for businesses looking to connect and secure their WAN edge and remote traffic. Yet, many businesses seeking greater simplicity and automation in their IT setup have limited IT staff.

Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms contain a user-centric design that makes device setup simple with RFID tags on each device to cut inventory management time, rounded corners for better handling and installation, and centralized cloud-based orchestration for easy bring-up. Improved device air flow via circular hex-pattern reduces the need for external cooling, while support for HVDC electricity reduces energy costs even further. The Catalyst 8200 comes in a modest form factor with a physical depth that’s less than 12” to most remote and mobile environments, allowing you to extend SD-WAN into the farthest reaches of your network.

Cisco Catalyst 8200 uCPE: Software-Defined Small and Lean Branches

For service providers and businesses seeking maximum flexibility with network functions virtualization (NFV), Cisco Catalyst 8200 Series Edge uCPE is the latest addition to our SD-Branch portfolio. The platform is purpose built for customers and service providers who need to offer performance alongside shifting technology needs and flexibility. Its 8 CPU cores support up to 500 Mbps aggregate IPsec performance and still have cores left to support additional Cisco or third-party virtual network functions (VNF).

The compact 1RU footprint, shallow depth and the ability to add PIM/NIM interfaces (shared with ISR 4000 and the Catalyst 8000 family) for cellular and WAN connectivity options gives the customers utmost flexibility vs. a white box solution. Catalyst 8200 uCPE can be deployed in SDWAN mode with vManage playing a common orchestrator for configuring the overlay and the underlay.

Cisco Catalyst Cellular Gateway 5G (Sub 6Ghz)

5G brings faster downloads, lower latency and increased capacity to the Wide Area Network. This, combined with SD-WAN, gives customers high speed bandwidth capacity at lower costs which helps them meet the growing throughput demands of an ever-expanding branch.

The latest Cisco Catalyst Cellular Gateway brings Sub 6Ghz 5G connectivity to businesses for ultra-fast wireless WAN and wireless SD-WAN links. Catalyst Cellular Gateways are simple to setup, able to be plugged into your router or edge platform via Power over Ethernet (PoE). Whether your edge device sits in the most remote closet or deepest basement matters little, simply run the Catalyst Cellular Gateway to the nearest reception point and power your network with the latest in 5G.

Broadband connectivity may not be available or reliable in certain locations, yet businesses there can still carry on with their digital transformation thanks to 5G cellular technology which is expanding rapidly in its roll-out. Set up and management are further simplified using Cisco vManage.

Simplified Tiered Licensing

The software capabilities available in feature-rich IOS XE and vManage can be easily consumed through a simplified, three-tiered DNA licensing model.

The first tier into Cisco DNA Software for SD-WAN and Routing is Cisco DNA Essentials.  It encompasses core SD-WAN capabilities such as: circuit load balancing, (DIA), centralized management & orchestration, and traffic path steering. It enables a robust blend of the latest routing capabilities (NAT, BGP, DNS, etc.) and base security capabilities (MACsec, ACLs, Snort IPS, Enterprise Firewall, etc.).

Moving up to Cisco DNA Advantage, subscribers receive everything in Cisco DNA Essentials plus more advanced routing capabilities (MPLS BGP Support, IGMPv3, etc.), more advanced security functionality (Advanced Malware Protection, SSL proxy, etc.), expanded SD-WAN capabilities, vAnalytics, plus access to Cisco’s Cloud OnRamp for SaaS, for IaaS, and for Colocation.

The most advanced Cisco DNA Premier subscription delivers the Cisco’s complete SASE portfolio with a single license! The integration of Cisco Umbrella SIG Essentials into Cisco DNA Premier enables customers to centrally manage the security posture for all remote and branch locations and implement effective cloud security throughout the Cisco SD-WAN fabric.

Designed for an intent-based network, the Catalyst 8000 Series Edge Platforms are the gateway to hybrid and multicloud applications across your cloud, data center and edge locations. The new portfolio announcements augment the Catalyst 8300, 8500, and Cellular Gateway launched last October. These new edge devices offer the resiliency, performance and security needed for today’s multicloud world.

Source: cisco.com