Product Overview; Brocade Router Overview; Router Applications; Hardware Features - Brocade Communications Systems MLX Series Installation Manual

Product Overview

Brocade router overview

Brocade routers provide high-performance routing to service providers, distributed enterprises, and research networks, offering the
following benefits:
•
Scalable multi-service IP/MPLS carrier Ethernet routers.
•
100 Gbps Ethernet, 10Gbps Ethernet and 1Gbps Ethernet wire speed ports in a single router.
•
Wire-speed IPv4, IPv6, and MPLS forwarding performance.
•
Comprehensive IPv4 and IPv6 routing support based on Brocade Multi-Service IronWare.
•
High-availability design with redundant management modules, switch fabric modules, power supplies and fans, supporting
hitless failover, hitless software upgrades, and non-stop routing.
•
Advanced, scalable Metro Ethernet Layer 2 services.
•
Advanced Layer 2/Layer 3 VPN and multicast capabilities support residential triple-play and business services.
•
Comprehensive hardware-based security and policies.
•
Advanced QoS for differentiated SLAs.

Router applications

Brocade routers are commonly deployed in the following situations:
•
Layer 2 metro networks
•
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (VPN) service provider networks supporting multi-VRFs
and RFC 2547bis
•
MPLS Layer 2 VPN service provider networks supporting both Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) and Virtual Leased Line
(VLL)
•
MPLS backbone 'P' routers
•
Data Centers
•
Enterprise backbones

Hardware features

This section describes the major hardware components of Brocade routers. The figures in this section show the router slots where you
install modules and power supplies. For installation instructions for these devices, refer to the appropriate installation chapter in this guide
for your model.

Brocade MLX routers

Brocade MLX routers are available in the following models:
•
Brocade MLX-4: 4 interface slots (see <Link>Figure 1 on page 2)
•
Brocade MLX-8: 8 interface slots (see <Link>Figure 2 on page 3)
Brocade MLX Series and Brocade NetIron XMR Installation Guide
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