Vology

The Cisco NPE-300 is a network processing engine (NPE) that maintains and executes the system management functions for network routers. It also shares the system memory and environmental monitoring functions with the I/O controller. The Cisco 300 network processing engine supports the Cisco 7200 series VXR routers and the Cisco uBR7246VXR universal broadband router. This refurbished unit includes 32 MB of base memory with 32 MB of additional memory. For added reliability, the cooling air that leaves the chassis is monitored by two environmental sensors. 

The NPE-300 includes extensive system management functions such as sending and receiving routing protocol updates, managing tables, caches and buffers, and monitoring interface and environmental status. It provides Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) management through the console and Telnet interface, which includes accounting for and switching data traffic and booting and reloading images. It also manages port adapters, including recognition and initialization during online insertion and removal.

For optimum speed and dependability, the NPE-300 has a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) microprocessor with a RM7000 microprocessor that operates at an internal clock speed of 262 MHz. It has a system controller that provides hardware logic to interconnect to the processor, DRAM, and the PCI-based system backplane bus. In addition, the Cisco 300 network processing engine has two system controllers that provide processor access to the mid-plane and single I/O controller PCI buses. 

The NPE-300 includes upgradable memory modules that use synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) for storing all packets sent or received from the network interface. The SDRAM also stores routing tables and network accounting applications. Two independent SDRAM memory arrays in the system allow concurrent access by port adapters and the processor. One is upgradable. The cache static random-access memory (SRAM) functions as the tertiary cache for the microprocessor, and a boot read-only memory ROM is utilized for storing enough code to boot the Cisco IOS software.