Cisco® Access Registrar is the leading Cisco RADIUS authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server for the service provider market. It supports service provider deployment of access services by centralizing AAA information and simplifying provisioning and management. Cisco Access Registrar is a standards-based RADIUS and proxy RADIUS server designed for high performance, extensibility, and integration with external data stores and systems. It provides an ideal solution for service providers with mobile wireless, public WLAN, broadband, dial, and voice over IP (VoIP) services networks.
Table 1 lists the features of the Cisco Access Registrar 4.1.
Table 1. Cisco Access Registrar 4.1 Features
Feature
Description
Authentication
Cisco Access Registrar supports a wide range of authentication including the latest Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) methods. User information can be stored in its internal database or external directories or databases.
Authorization
Cisco Access Registrar has user and group authorization. Session limits and IP address pools can be managed centrally, across multiple Cisco Access Registrar servers.
Accounting
Cisco Access Registrar's flexible accounting allows accounting records to be stored to local files, to external databases, proxy, or any combination of these methods.
RADIUS Proxy
Cisco Access Registrar provides rich RADIUS proxy functions including EAP Proxy, and failover and Round Robin modes.
Customization
Cisco Access Registrar has the flexibility to implement complex realm and AAA policies used in today's multiple-technology service provider environments. It also provides interfaces for automated configuration provisioning and custom-built
AAA methods.
Performance
Cisco Access Registrar's high-performance AAA processing increases return on investment (ROI) through lower hardware and server management costs.
NEW FEATURES
The following features are new in Cisco Access Registrar 4.1:
• Expanded Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) support-Cisco Access Registrar 4.1 adds support for flexible authentication via Tunneled Transport Layer Security (TTLS) authentication protocol.
• RFC4186 support-Cisco Access Registrar 4.1 updates EAP-SIM support per RFC4186, Extensible Authentication Protocol Method for Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Subscriber Identity Modules (EAP-SIM).
• Microsoft Wireless Provisioning Services (WPS)-Cisco Access Registrar 4.1 supports Microsoft WPS, which will help operators more easily provision subscribers in the public WLAN networks.
• Query and Notify service-This feature is available on the session cache option. Query and Notify remembers the RADIUS query received by the applications and notifies them upon session termination.
• Red Hat Enterprise Edition 4.0 support (beginning with Cisco Access Registrar 4.1.2 release)-Adds support for the latest operating systems for Linux customers.
UPGRADE PATHS
Customers with Cisco Access Registrar 3.x can upgrade to Cisco Access Registrar 4.1 by purchasing the appropriate upgrade license (Table 2). Existing Cisco Access Registrar 4.0 customers with Software Application Support (SAS) contracts can upgrade to Cisco Access Registrar 4.1 using the upgrade tool at http://www.cisco.com/upgrade.
AVAILABILITY
The Cisco Access Registrar 4.1 and the associated upgrade kit started shipping March 27, 2006. Table 2 lists ordering information for Cisco Access Registrar 4.1.
ORDERING INFORMATION
Table 2. Ordering Information
Part Number
Description
AR-4.1-BASE-K9
Cisco Access Registrar 4.0 base software
AR-4.1-UP-K9
Cisco Access Registrar 4.0 upgrade for existing release 1.x and 3.x customers that do not have a SAS contract
AR-4.1-ADD-HLR=
Additional license option for Home Location Registrar (HLR) proxy feature
AR-4.1-ADD-PRPAID=
Additional license option for prepayment
AR-4.1-ADD-CPU=
Additional license option for additional CPU
AR-4.1-ADD-CACHE=
Additional license option for additional cache
An evaluation copy of this product is also available through the Cisco Software Center. All customers must have Cisco.com access and permission to download encrypted information.
