The Cisco CRS-3 carrier routing system offers industry-leading performance, advanced services intelligence, environmentally conscious design, and system longevity. Packet-based data communications are being replaced by video and rich media traversing the IP Next-Generation Network (NGN) in multiple directions, straining the architectural foundations of both public and private networks serving businesses and consumers. As part of the medianet, a media-aware Cisco IP NGN, the Cisco CRS-3 delivers continuous, always-on operations and scales easily from numerous single-chassis form factors to a massive multi-chassis system. Its design provides an industry-leading efficiency consuming lowest power, cooling and rack-space resources for an intelligent service-rich bandwidth capacity. The CRS-3 builds on the CRS-1 being backward and forward compatible, protecting existing and future investments for decades to come.