Cisco ASR1000-ESP20

The Cisco ASR 1000 Embedded Services Processor is the brains of the ASR 1000 Chassis, designed to aggregate the traffic flows and network services, from cryptography to quality of service, and forward them at line speed. Based on the QuantumFlow Processor, the ASR1000-ESP20 has a throughput rate of 20Gbps over 256 parallel processors. This leads to high-performance support for features like deep-packet inspection with full Layer 2 visibility, a zone-based firewall with line-speed throughput, and hardware-assisted cryptography for secure WAN access.

The ESP20 can perform various roles in the network thanks to its processing power- it can act as an internet gateway, delivering multigigiabit firewall at 20Gbps; a broadband aggregation router for up to 64,000 sessions, with support for VoiP and video services; an enterprise WAN aggregator that can deliver multigigabit 3DES/AES encryption and WAN optimization for mission-critical applications, among other situations.