System Architecture Description for T Series Routers

The T Series Core Routers have two main architectural components:

• Routing Engine—One or more Routing Engines provide Layer 3 routing services and network management.
• Packet Forwarding Engines—These high-performance, ASIC-based components provide Layer 2 and Layer 3 packet switching, route lookups, and packet forwarding.

The Routing Engines and the Packet Forwarding Engines perform their primary tasks independently, although they constantly communicate through multiple 100 millions of packets per second (Mbps) links. This arrangement streamlines forwarding and routing control and runs Internet-scale backbone networks at high speeds. Figure 1 shows the relationship between the Routing Engine and the Packet Forwarding Engines.

Figure 1: Router Architecture