Product Overview

The AGS+ is a modular router chassis incorporating a nine-slot Multibus backplane and a five-slot high-speed backplane called the ciscoBus. Figure 1-1 shows the front of the chassis.

External connections to the network are provided by interface appliques attached to the rear of the chassis. (See Figure 1-2.) The various types of interface cables and appliques are discussed in detail in Appendix A, "Cabling Specifications," which includes pinouts of all of the different types of interface cables and appliques.

Your responsibilities for bringing the chassis on line will include installing the chassis in a rack (or elsewhere), making external connections to various networks by way of appropriate interface cables, and using the configuration software routines specified in the Router Products Getting Started Guide. This publication applies to hardware installation only; it will take you through the installation up to, but not including, the configuration software routines.

Chassis Specifications

This section discusses the specifications of the components and power supply used in the chassis. Table 1-1 lists the general specifications for the router.

Processor, Controller, Memory, and Interface Cards

This section provides an overview of the following four types of printed circuit cards that can be used in the chassis:

• Processor cards

• ciscoBus controller cards

• Memory

• Network interface cards

The combination of network interface cards in a chassis determines its operation.

\The chassis card cage (see Figure 1-3) has nine Multibus slots and five ciscoBus slots. (The five ciscoBus slots can accept Multibus cards if ciscoBus cards are not desired.) Because the chassis requires the CSC-ENVM card and a processor card at a minimum, seven Multibus slots are available. If ciscoBus cards are desired, the center ciscoBus slot (slot 7 in Figure 1-3) is used for the ciscoBus controller card (CSC-CCTL or CSC-CCTL2), leaving four slots available for ciscoBus interface cards. The various cards in each category are described in the following sections.

Processor Cards

The processor card is the supervisor that contains and executes most of the software programs that control the system. Table 1-2 lists the specifications for processor cards that can be used in the chassis.

ciscoBus Controller Cards

The ciscoBus controller cards, CSC-CCTL and CSC-CCTL2, provide the following two functions for the chassis:

• Connect the Multibus and the ciscoBus for routing packets from interfaces on the ciscoBus to interfaces on the Multibus bus

• Perform packet-switching functions on the ciscoBus using an onboard processor, rather than the Multibus processor

The ciscoBus system controller cards are required for operation with all high-speed network interface cards that reside in the ciscoBus. The ciscoBus controller cards are installed in the center ciscoBus slot. (See Figure 1-3.)

Table 1-3 lists the ciscoBus interface cards that are compatible with the CSC-CCTL and CSC-CCTL2 ciscoBus controller cards.

The CSC-CCTL2 card works with the CSC-C2FCIT and CSC-C2CTR cards by default. The CSC-FCI, CSC-HSCI, and CSC MEC cards become the CSC-C2FCI, CSC-C2HSCI, and CSC-C2MEC cards, respectively, when their microcode is upgraded to Version 10.0 or later. (See Table 1-3.) The designator C2 refers to the CSC-CCTL2 card.

Memory Cards

Memory cards provide long-term, nonvolatile random-access memory (NVRAM) storage for configuration and data. Table 1-4 lists the memory cards available for the chassis.

Network Interface Cards

Network interface cards connect your chassis to one or more networks. Table 1-5 lists the ciscoBus network interface cards, and Table 1-6 lists the Multibus network interface cards. With the CSC-FCI, CSC-MEC, and CSC-HSCI interface cards, the CSC-CCTL ciscoBus controller card is required. With the CSC-C2FCI, CSC-C2FCIT, CSC-C2HSCI, and CSC-C2MEC interface cards, the CSC-CCTL2 ciscoBus controller card is required.

Card and Port Limitations

Table 1-7 provides a complete list of the interface card and port types and the quantities of each that can be installed in the chassis. The ports attach to the network by way of rear-panel appliques.

Caution The chassis allows for a maximum of 16 Token Ring interfaces, which is a combination of four CSC-2R Multibus cards and two CSC-C2CTR ciscoBus cards. Two ciscoBus slots are used as Multibus slots. Because the slower Multibus interfaces always have higher priority than ciscoBus interfaces, traffic on the Multibus may degrade performance of the ciscoBus Token Ring interfaces for nonautonomously switched interfaces. Therefore, we do not recommend the combination ciscoBus and Multibus Token Ring configurations for performance-sensitive applications.

Rear Panel Configurations

External network connections to the chassis are provided through a variety of rear-panel connector plates and appliques. Table 1-8 provides a list of the available connector plates, their relative sizes, the maximum number of appliques per plate, and where the appliques can be positioned on the rear panel of the chassis. Plates are listed from left to right with the rear panel of the chassis facing you.

Chassis Power Budget

If your future configuration needs change, use the following information (see Table 1-9) to help you choose chassis components based on their power consumption. The chassis has a total power budget of 300W; therefore, the total power dissipation of the individual interface and processor cards must not exceed 300W. Following is an example calculation. (All values are in watts.)