Full English Description for Cisco ASR 9904

1. Official Short Order Description (Datasheet Standard Format)

2. Complete Detailed Product Overview

Product Line Positioning

Modular FRU Slot Architecture (Core Hardware Layout)

Dual Redundant RSP Route Switch Processor Slots (1+1 Control Plane HA)

• Fabric capacity options: 440 Gbps redundant dual-RSP mode, 880 Gbps non-redundant single-RSP mode, maximum total system throughput up to 1.6 Tbps full-duplex with high-performance line cardsCisco.

Two Horizontal Hot-Swap Line Card Slots (OIR Supported)

• High-density Ethernet line cards: 24×10GE SFP+, 12×25G SFP28, 8×100GE QSFP28, 2×400GE QSFP-DD ultra-high capacity uplink modules
• Optical transport line cards: OTN/SONET/SDH POS trunk modules for long-haul carrier legacy transport convergence
  All line cards integrate distributed Quantum Flow Processor forwarding ASICs with dedicated hardware offload engines for L2/L3 forwarding, CGNAT, firewall, AVC DPI, MACsec/IPsec encryption and hierarchical H-QoS scheduling.

Integrated Multi-Standard Precision Timing Interfaces (Critical for 5G xHaul)

• 1 × GPS GNSS mini-coax input port for Stratum 1 PRTC grandmaster clock generation
• 1 × BITS RJ45 timing port compliant with GR-1244-CORE Stratum 3 carrier synchronization standard
  Native full support for SyncE, IEEE 1588v2 PTP telecom profiles, ToD, 10MHz reference clock and 1PPS pulse signals to eliminate clock drift for synchronous 4G/5G fronthaul/backhaul transport networksCisco.

Management, Alarm & Auxiliary Interfaces

• Dual isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 out-of-band management Ethernet ports for redundant remote chassis monitoring
• Dual console access: RJ45 serial console + Mini-USB Type B port for local offline configuration
• 1×RJ45 AUX dial-out port for backup analog modem remote maintenance
• 2×USB 3.0 Type-A host ports for license upload, offline configuration backup and IOS XR firmware image transfer
• Front-panel multi-color LED array monitoring primary/backup RSP health, line card link activity, power supply, fan tray operating status, timing lock status, crypto engine activity and critical/minor/major fault alarms.

Processor, Memory & Storage

1. Dual Integrated RSP Switching Fabric Architecture
   Memoryless multi-stage nonblocking distributed fabric embedded on both RSP modules, delivering low-latency wire-speed packet forwarding across all line card ports, unified hardware crypto resource pool shared system-wide for MACsec and IPsec VPN accelerationCisco.
   • Base factory memory per RSP: 16GB ECC DDR4 RAM
   • Field-upgradable maximum 64GB ECC DDR4 RAM per RSP for tier-1 carrier route reflectors and large-scale broadband BRAS multi-subscriber workloads
2. Boot Flash: Fixed 32GB rugged industrial eUSB onboard flash for 64-bit IOS XR modular boot images, crash dumps, NVRAM persistent logging and system archives; no internal SATA SSD/HDD mass storage tray supported.

Power, Mechanical & Environmental Specifications

• Form Factor: Standard 6RU 19-inch four-post data center / carrier central office rack-mount chassis
• Physical Dimensions: 266.7mm H × 447mm W × 610mm D
• Weight: ~18kg empty chassis; fully loaded with dual RSPs and two line cards ~26.5kg
• Cooling: Single hot-swappable OIR fan tray with front-to-back airflow; tray replacement allowed while chassis operational within 4 minutes to avoid thermal alarms
• Power Supply Architecture: Dual hot-swappable wide-range AC (90–264VAC) / -48VDC / HVDC power supplies for N+1 carrier-grade power redundancy; maximum total chassis power draw 1200W
• Operating Temperature: 5°C ~ +40°C continuous indoor central office / equipment room operation
• Storage Temperature: -40°C ~ +70°C
• Humidity: 10%–90% RH non-condensing operating humidity
• Compliance: UL 62368-1, IEC/EN 60950-1, NEBS GR-1089 / GR-63, FCC Class A, CE certified for carrier central office, mobile transport hub and enterprise core data center deploymentCisco.

Official Performance Benchmarks

• Maximum total nonblocking full-duplex IMIX forwarding throughput: Up to 1.6 Tbps
• Maximum packet forwarding rate: 1.6 Bpps (billion packets per second)
• System-wide hardware-accelerated IMIX IPsec/MACsec total crypto throughput: Max 48 Gbps
• Maximum concurrent EVPN/VPLS L2VPN service instances: Up to 10,000 with 64GB RSP memory
• Total concurrent stateful firewall sessions: Up to 10 million sessions
• Full hardware offload support for NBAR2 AVC deep packet inspection, hierarchical MQC H-QoS, large-scale CGNAT carrier-grade address translation, multicast replication and sub-second BFD fast convergence.

Software & Core Supported Capabilities (64-bit Modular Cisco IOS XR)

1. Carrier-Grade Routing & Complete MPLS Suite
   IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack forwarding, BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, Segment Routing, RSVP-TE, BFD sub-second fast convergence; full MPLS feature stack including L3VPN, EVPN, VPLS, EoMPLS, multi-tenant route reflector and broadband L2TP BRAS termination supporting tens of thousands of simultaneous residential subscriber sessions for multi-tenant service provider private WAN architectures.
2. 4G/5G Mobile xHaul Convergence Transport Suite
   Native SyncE / IEEE 1588v2 PTP / GPS/BITS multi-layer synchronous timing stack, MEF-compliant Carrier Ethernet E-Line/E-LAN/E-Tree services, SAToP/CESoP TDM pseudowire legacy circuit migration, zero-touch provisioning compatible with Cisco NSO Network Services Orchestrator for mass nationwide cell-site orchestration.
3. Unified Integrated Carrier-Grade Security Stack
   Line-rate hardware MACsec/IPsec tunnel acceleration, next-generation stateful zone firewall, IDS/IPS threat inspection, advanced malware protection (AMP), large-scale CGNAT subscriber address translation, AAA RADIUS/TACACS+, TLS encrypted remote multi-tenant traffic segmentation and secure boot hardware root of trust.
4. Application Visibility & Hierarchical H-QoS Management
   NBAR2 full application signature classification, multi-level hierarchical MQC traffic shaping/policing with strict priority queues for mobile voice and control signaling, IP SLA performance monitoring, NetFlow/IPFIX streaming telemetry for centralized broadband and transport network capacity analytics.
5. Enhanced Carrier-Grade High Availability Mechanisms (Dual RSP Exclusive)
   NSF Nonstop Forwarding, SSO Stateful Switchover between primary/backup RSP modules, ISSU In-Service Software Upgrade for zero-downtime firmware updates, HSRP/VRRP gateway redundancy, sub-second BFD link failure detection, dual redundant power supplies and single OIR hot-swap fan tray eliminating single points of failure for 24/7 unmanned core aggregation operation.
6. Multi-Tenant Automation & Programmability
   CLI/SSH console access, REST API, NETCONF/YANG, gRPC, Python scripting, real-time streaming telemetry, native integration with Catalyst Center and NSO Network Services Orchestrator for mass enterprise and service provider core device lifecycle automation.

Typical Deployment Scenarios

3. E-commerce Short Marketing Description

4. Product Catalog Keyword Tags

Naming Rule Explanation

• ASR = Aggregation Services Router, Cisco’s high-performance IOS XR carrier/enterprise multi-service core aggregation platform series
• 9000 = Modern high-capacity IOS XR carrier core chassis family (separated from shallow-depth IOS XE ASR 900 mobile transport edge routers)
• 9904 = Next-gen 6RU mid-tier modular chassis form factor (two line card slots, dual redundant RSP integrated fabric architecture, compact footprint between fixed-port ASR 9901 and large multi-slot ASR 9906/9912 terabit core chassis)
• No suffix = Standard modular mid-range chassis compatible with RSP5-X / RSP880 modern route processor generations, supporting high-density 400G fiber line cards and full 5G synchronous timing stack