The highest end of the lineup, the ASR 9000 series, is intended for service provider (SP) core networks.
However, many enterprise customers chose equipment Cisco categorized under the banner of being intended for service providers, and vice versa.
Prior to the ASR 9000 series, Cisco's high-end SP product portfolio consisted of the CRS-1, the GSR, and the 7600 (and the 6500).
In 2011, Cisco announced capacity upgrades and support of network Virtualization (nV) capabilities[1] for the ASR 9000.
[2] The ASR 900 series is a chassis-based modular router that runs the Cisco IOS XE Linux-based operating system.