T1600 System Architecture Description

The T1600 Core Router has two main architectural components:

• Routing Engine—This component provides 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 Engine and the Packet Forwarding Engines perform their primary tasks independently, although they constantly communicate through multiple 100-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