Cisco® ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers provide a Software Defined WAN platform that aggregates multiple WAN connections and network services including encryption and traffic management, and forward them across WAN connections at line speeds from 2.5 to 200 Gbps. The routers contain both hardware and software redundancy in an industry-leading high-availability design.

The latest additions to the Cisco ASR 1000 Series are the Cisco ASR 1002-HX Router and the Cisco ASR 1001-HX Router. Both new routers support up to 100 Gbps in a 2-Rack-Unit (2RU) and 60 Gbps in a 1-Rack-Unit (1RU) form factor, respectively. The ASR 1002-HX has 8 built-in 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) ports and 8 1 GE ports, with the Ethernet Port Adapter (EPA) slot for expansion. The ASR 1001-HX has 4 built-in 10 GE ports, 8 1 GE ports, and 4 configurable 10 GE or 1 GE ports. The Cisco ASR 1000 Series Route Processor 3 is the newest addition to the modular control plane engines in the Cisco ASR 1000 Series. The Route Processor 3 adds more options for higher performance, memory, and storage to the ASR 1000 Series.

The Cisco ASR 1000 Series supports Cisco IOS® XE Software, a modular operating system with modular packaging, feature velocity, and powerful resiliency. The Cisco ASR 1000 Series Embedded Services Processors (ESPs), which are based on Cisco Flow Processor technology, accelerate many advanced features such as crypto-based access security; Network Address Translation (NAT), thread defense with Cisco Zone-Based Firewall (ZBFW), Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE), and a diverse set of Data-Center-Interconnect (DCI) features. These services are implemented in Cisco IOS XE Software without the need for additional hardware support.