The Cisco ASR 1000 series Embedded Services Processors (ESPs) are based on the innovative, industry-leading Cisco QuantumFlow processor for forwarding and queuing in silicon.
The Cisco ASR 1000 Series ESPs are responsible for the data-plane processing tasks, and all network traffic flows through them. The modules perform all baseline packet routing operations, including MAC classification, Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, Quality-of-Service (QoS) classification, policing and shaping, security access control lists (ACLs), VPNs, load balancing, and NetFlow. They are also responsible for features such as firewalls, intrusion prevention, Network-Based Application Recognition (NBAR), Network Address Translation (NAT), and Cisco IOS flexible pattern matching.