The Enterprise includes a steel 5U 19-inch rackmount chassis, a high-performance dual processor industrial computer, quad bus backplane, 512 MB error-correcting DDR memory, and dual 10/100/1000 ethernet ports. The Enterprise is also designed for high reliability, and features a dual input redundant AC power supply, hot-swap chassis cooling fans, and flash storage with no moving parts.

The Enterprise is very scalable with its dual XEON® processors and 12 PCI-X slots. The four buses (A, B, C and D) are PCI-X 133 buses that operate independently at speeds up to 8 Gbps, providing an aggregate bus bandwidth of up to 32 Gbps. Bus A is shared by the on-board 10/100/1000 ports, and can operate at a maximum clock speed of 100 MHz when additional cards are installed on the bus.

The PCI slots accept LAN and WAN adapters including all Industrial Series network cards. With these add-on cards, the Enterprise can route between multiple IP networks using 56/64 K DDS, fractional and full T1/E1, fractional and full DS3/E3, OC3, OC12, OC48, token ring, ethernet, 802.11a/b/g wireless, ADSL, basic rate ISDN (BRI), and 56 K dial-up modem connections.

The Enterprise takes advantage of the ImageStream Linux™ router distribution, which provides support for NAT firewall security, IPsec and SSL virtual private networks (VPNs), quality of service (QoS), VLAN tagging, VRRP for LAN failover, dynamic routing, packet filtering, bridging, peer-to-peer traffic control, and more. ImageStream Linux also includes the Inetics platform, which provides a tightly integrated Linux kernel, management software, and the Inetics Driver Component Architecture (IDCA). IDCA supports WAN protocols including PPP, Cisco HDLC, frame relay, ATM, and SoftCell™ ATM. Inetics also makes it easy to troubleshoot LAN and WAN connections by providing real-time port status and performance monitoring.

The Enterprise is an ideal solution for applications that require wire-speed performance with superior scalability and built-in power supply redundancy. The router supports IP firewall security, IPsec virtual private networking (VPN), and a wide range of other powerful features. The Enterprise will work where most Cisco 7200, 7600 and 12000 series routers are used.

The Enterprise is commonly used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as a core router for multihomed networks where dynamic routing, multiport T1/E1, DS3/E3, OC3, OC12 and OC48 connections are deployed. The Enterprise is a low-cost, full-featured router for midrange ISP applications and corporate networks where scalability and redundancy are required.