IOS XR - Architecture

Architecture

According to Cisco's product literature, IOS XR shares very little infrastructure with the other IOS trains, and is instead built upon a "preemptive, memory protected, multitasking, microkernel-based operating system". The microkernel is provided by QNX.

IOS XR aims to provide the following advantages over the earlier IOS trains:

  • Improved high availability (largely through support for hardware redundancy and fault containment methods such as protected memory spaces for individual processes and process restartability)
  • Better scalability for large hardware configurations (through a distributed software infrastructure and a two-stage forwarding architecture)
  • A package based software distribution model (allowing optional features such as multicast routing and MPLS to be installed and removed while the router is in service)
  • The ability to install package upgrades and patches (potentially while the router remains in service)
  • A web-based GUI for system management (making use of a generic, XML management interface)

Read more about this topic:  IOS XR

Famous quotes containing the word architecture:

    They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
    Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)