Cisco this week enhanced its XR 12000 router line with a module designed to deliver more predictable network performance for business services.

The Multi-Service Blade (MSB) for the XR 12000 features route-aware firewall and video/voice session border control (SBC) functionality for applications, such as videoconferencing. The MSB fits into the XR 12000 chassis and is intended to eliminate the need for overlay networks and stand-alone appliances to deliver voice, video and network-based security services over VPNs.

Memory and CPU resources in the MSB are allocated via the virtualization features of Cisco’s IOS XR operating system. Service virtualization on the XR 12000 allows service providers and large enterprises to implement separate policies for different customers or functional areas over the same physical infrastructure, Cisco says.

An integral firewall on the 8Gbps MSB inspects traffic flows and helps prevent unauthorized access to protected resources. It can be used at the public IP peering point or as a shared-services facing router, Cisco says.

Service provider Savvis is using MSB as the basis of a managed-security service offering, Cisco says.

The MSB’s integral SBC provides per-session control and management of IP multimedia traffic based on SIP and H.323 protocols for signaling and interoperability. The SBC also performs voice and video call access control, and scales to more than 200,000 simultaneous sessions on a single chassis, prompting Cisco to aim MSB squarely at service providers and large enterprises that offer or use the company’s new TelePresence videoconferencing system.

The MSB features active/standby configuration with active session preservation and stateful failover for switchovers, as well as in-service software/maintenance updates, Cisco says. Cisco intends to enable software uploads to the MSB to take it beyond its initial firewall and SBC capabilities, to distributed denial of service detection, deep packet inspection and lawful intercept.

Pricing for the MSB starts at $80,000. MSB with integrated SBC is available; the virtual firewall capabilities are expected to be available in May.