Cisco says MGX 8850 is its WAN baby

Company responds to WAN swtiching mystery.

By Jim Duffy
Network World Fusion, 05/11/99

LAS VEGAS -- Cisco yesterday said its current switch for the edge of service provider networks is also its strategic core WAN switch.

In light of last week's reports on the death of the TGX 8750 IP/ATM switch and the apparent absence of a strategic core WAN offering, Cisco said its MGX 8850 will fill that bill now and in the future. Cisco will continue to enhance and upgrade the MGX 8850 for both core and edge duty "for many years," says Larry Lang, a vice president in Cisco's Service Provider line of business.

Lang says the MGX 8850 recently beat out core offerings from Newbridge Networks and Ascend for deployment in the WIC Connexus network in Canada and in the ICG Netcom network. AT&T is also using the MGX 8850 for its recently announced IP-enabled frame relay service that will use the Multiprotocol Label Switching technology for traffic engineering.

Cisco killed the TGX 8750 because it could not develop a price-competitive product for enterprises and service providers. The TGX 8750 was considered a key product for Cisco to compete directly with Nortel Networks, Newbridge Networks and Ascend for service provider business.

The death of the TGX 8750 raised questions about Cisco's entire WAN switching strategy after acquiring StrataCom three years ago for $4 billion.

Lang says the WAN switching business has been growing even though Cisco has developed only one new platform - the MGX 8850 - since acquiring StrataCom. Cisco's third quarter of fiscal 1999, which closed April 28 and result of which will be announced today, was the best ever for the company's WAN business, Lang says.

As for reports that Cisco is developing a 120G bit/sec to 190G bit/sec IP/ATM switch for the WAN core under the code-name Jupiter, Lang did not comment specifically, but said Cisco will always have faster, better products in the pipeline.

"We're focusing our efforts to make sure the MGX is a long-lived, full-featured platform users should be investing in," Lang says.