Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers deliver exceptional scale, service flexibility, and high availability to Carrier Ethernet transport networks. The router is powered by widely deployed Cisco IOS XR 64 bit operating system, an innovative self-healing, distributed operating system designed for always-on operation. The ASR 9901 sets a new standard for Layer 2 and Layer 3 10GE/1GE service density and scale to support large-scale aggregation, Data Center Interconnect (DCI), and Satellite Network Virtualization (nV) System mode on the ASR 9000 Series Router. The ASR 9901 also supports industry leading MAC-SEC encryption on all its port speeds. These versatile capabilities help operators qualify and stock one type of chassis that can be deployed in any combination of Layer 2, Layer 3, DCI, or aggregation applications, thereby reducing Capital Expenditures (CapEx) and Operating Expenses (OpEx), as well as reducing the time required to develop and deploy new services.

Cisco ASR 9000 Series Carrier Ethernet applications include business services such as Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN (L2VPN and L3VPN, mobile backhaul transport networks, and Broadband Network Gateway (BNG). Features supported include Ethernet Services; L2VPN; IPv4, IPv6, and L3VPN; Layer 2 and Layer 3 multicast; Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE), Ethernet Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (EOAM) and MPLS OAM, Layer 2 and Layer 3 Access Control Lists (ACLs), Hierarchical Quality of Service (HQoS), MPLS Traffic Engineering Fast Reroute (MPLS TE-FRR), Multichassis Link Aggregation (MC-LAG), Integrated Routing and Bridging (IRB) and Cisco Nonstop Forwarding (NSF) and Nonstop Routing (NSR). The System also supports the advanced features including Segment Routing, EVPN, Programmability and Telemetry and other enhancements in the IOS-XR 64 Bit Operating System.a