SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today introduces several new standards-based software features including DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (DS-TE) and Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements to deliver Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) guaranteed bandwidth services. By deploying Cisco's MPLS solution for guaranteed bandwidth services, service providers now can offer voice and data services with point-to-point bandwidth guarantees using an MPLS network -- an industry first for connectionless networks.

"Cisco's DiffServ-aware TE solution will enable us to provide point-to-point guarantees across our 2.5 Gigabit per second packet network in France," says Herve Prigent, MPLS and Guaranteed Bandwidth project leader for TF-NGN and technical manager at CRIHAN. ``We need these point-to-point guarantees for trunking application flows in support of metacomputing and remote control of large scientific equipment that previously was possible only with circuit-switched networks."

In a separate announcement:

Cisco Systems Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announces availability of the industry's most comprehensive Quality of Service (QoS) Differentiated Services (DiffServ) solution. Cisco's DiffServ solution, enabled by Cisco IOS® Software, offers several management and provisioning tools to increase network scalability and manageability. These tools, including Cisco QoS Device Manager, QoS Policy Manager, Cisco Internet Performance Monitor and Cisco Service Management Solution, have been enhanced to provide enterprise and service provider customers with the flexibility to provision DiffServ across a wide range of link types, speeds, platforms and network usage scenarios.

"Cisco's DiffServ solution represents an important milestone for the future of Cisco's QoS strategy, setting the stage for more simplified provisioning and IntServ-DiffServ integration on Cisco platforms, as well as a movement towards truly powerful policy-based networking," says Tere Bracco, director of eBusiness Infrastructure, Current Analysis.

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