Cisco AS5850 WIKI

AS5850 Product Overview:
The Cisco AS5850 is a telco-grade, high density, dual DC powered media gateway, providing support for voice/data/fax, and video over IP. The Cisco® AS5850 Universal Gateway is a high-density universal voice/data/fax gateway with carrier-class attributes, offering high availability and high capacity. It is specifically designed to meet the demands of medium to large service providers and enterprises, supporting at least 2688 ports, using Channelized T3 (CT3), 24 T1, 24 E1, or STM-1 trunk interfaces to support data, voice, and fax services. The AS5850 is a large, heavy gateway, and uses the same trunk card and DSP hardware as used in the AS5400 series, combined on special carrier cards. It offers high-availability features such as hot-swap on all cards, load-sharing and redundant hot-swappable DC power supplies, redundant fans for cooling, redundant enhanced-route-switch-controller (ERSC) mainboard/IO cards (an older version, the RSC, is also available but should not be used in provisioning a new system), and Call Admission Control (CAC)-all part of the carrier-class attributes required to provide a highly available system. Higher-capacity configurations, depending on dial, voice, and fax application types, are also supported.

An older version - the AS5800, also exists and is compatible with the voice and data hardware used in the AS5300. The AS5800, like the AS5300, must be configured as either a dialup or a VOIP gateway - different DSP/modem cards are used, unlike the newer AS5850 which is any service on any port. While both the older and newer version chassis are labeled "AS5800" on their chassis, it is important to know which you're dealing with as they are completely different. For assistance with older version AS5800 equipment, contact us.

The AS5850 comes standard with dual DC power, and can be provisioned with a combination of 1 or 2 eRSC (route switch controller) cards, one or more AS58-24CT1 or 24CE1 trunk cards, one or more (up to 4) AS58-CT3/216UPC combination CT3 and 216 port DSP card, and one or more AS58-324UPC voice/data/fax/video DSP cards. An AC power shelf is theoretically available, but never seen.

AS5850 Operation:
The Cisco AS5850 supports a variety of trunking interfaces, including channelized T1, E1, CT3/DS3, and STM1 ingress and egress interfaces. Digital calls are terminated onboard the trunk card, and analog calls are sent to port handling (DSP) resources on either the same card or on another DSP card. Multiple ingress interface cards of like and different types can be installed and configured on the Cisco AS5850, depending on needs.

Trunk and port handling cards are tied together using several time-division multiplexing (TDM) buses on the backplane. Each line card is also connected, through point-to-point packet buses, to a central switch on the Enhanced Route Switch Controller (eRSC) cards. The eRSC cards transmit and receive packetized data across the IP network.

The Cisco AS5850 supports a split or redundant backplane configuration by using two eRSC cards. In the classic-split configuration, the system operates as two separate universal gateways with eache RSC controlling its own set of feature cards. In the handover-split mode, if one eRSC fails, the other eRSC takes control of the failed eRSC's feature cards so their operation can continue. In the route processor redundancy (RPR+) mode, one eRSC acts as the active eRSC that controls all the resources in the chassis. The other RSC is the standby RSC and assumes control of the chassis if the active eRSC fails. RPR+ enables a much faster switchover with fewer dropped calls than handover-split mode.

Components and Modules:

• 24E1 trunk card - AS58-24CE1=
  
• 24T1 trunk card - AS58-24CT1=
  
• CT3/216 universal port card - AS58-1CT3/216U=
  
• SDH/STM-1 trunk card - AS58-1STM1=
  
• 324 universal port card - AS58-324UPC-CC=
  
• Enhanced Route switch controller card (eRSC) - AS58-eRSC-2GE=
  

Example models include the AS585-4DS3-2688 (4 DS3 configuration), AS585-1STM1-1890 (STM interface model), AS585-48E1-1440 (48 E1s), and AS585-48T1-1152 (48 T1 version), but any combination of trunk card and DSPs can assembled.

Product Review:
The AS5850 is an exceptional value for dealing with high density voice/dialup service, and its employment of dual CPU (eRSC) cards assists redundancy. It is ideally suited for a telco environment, particularly because it requires a -48VDC power system (AC power would have to be jury rigged through a transformer system for other service providers). It also has the option of an STM1 interface (up to 2 per AS5850), an option not available with other Cisco Access Servers. It is best compared with a Cisco AS5400XM, as this is the only other Cisco access server that can individually handle a full DS3 circuit. From a cost point of view, the AS5850 would at present be far less expensive than the AS5400XM beginning at least at a 2DS3/CT3 configuration. On the other hand, remember that the AS5850 is now at End of Life at Cisco, and does not support the newest DSP cards (AS5X-PVDM2-64) Cisco has developed for use in its XM line. For those expecting Cisco TAC and Smartnet support, this may be a problem in the future. On the other hand, the AS5850 is so widely deployed that 3rd party technical support and parts are practically assured.

Manufacturer Support:

External Link - Support from Cisco.com can be found by clicking this link