- Pay-as-you-grow investment model
The Return On Investment (ROI) on an access element is heavily influenced by its location in the network and proximity to customers. The ability to deploy the Cisco NCS 520 and later activate features on demand delivers investment protection. This protection allows flexibility for deploying timing (To be developed), 10 GE services, and boosting service capacity. - ZTP
ZTP automates configuration of the Cisco NCS 520 when it is deployed in the network. The ZTP process is activated by pressing the ZTP button on the front of the Cisco NCS 520. This minimizes manual operator intervention, minimizes configuration time, and helps reduce customers' initial deployment costs. - Ethernet services with enhanced QoS
The Cisco NCS 520 provides all the features required for MEF 2.0 service initiation, including services such as ELINE, ELAN, and EACCESS. To help maintain proper QoS for these services, the Cisco NCS 520 offers rich traffic classification and hierarchical QoS for per-port services. To help ensure that Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) are enforced, ingress traffic policing and egress shaping are also supported. - Rich OAM for service assurance
Service assurance is provided through a rich feature set of Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) functionalities. The performance management traffic is time stamped in hardware to help ensure great accuracy. - Advanced timing services
For mobile deployments, the Cisco NCS 520 offers SyncE and IEEE 1588v2 with ordinary, transparent, and boundary clock capabilities. Timing capabilities will be developed post product release and are not available at First Customer Ship date.
Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 520 are next-generation Layer 2 customer-located devices and network demarcation devices for service providers. These 10 Gigabit Ethernet demarcation points redefine the demarcation between the customer LAN and a service provider's mobile and cloud applications. They provide standards-based demarcation as defined by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) for services such as Ethernet point-to-point line (ELINE) and Ethernet multipoint-to-multipoint (ELAN) services, with advanced clocking and Quality of Service (QoS).