The Cisco ASR 1000 Series Embedded Service Processors (ESPs) are based on the innovative, industry-leading Cisco QuantumFlow Processor for next-generation forwarding and queuing in silicon. These modules use the first generation of the hardware and software architecture known as Cisco QuantumFlow Processor.The Cisco ASR 1000 Series ESPs are responsible for the data-plane processing tasks, and all network traffic flows through them. The modules perform all baseline packet routing operations, including MAC classification, Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, quality-of-service (QoS) classification, policing and shaping, security access control lists (ACLs), VPNs, load balancing, and NetFlow. They are also responsible for features such as firewalls, intrusion prevention, Network Based Application Recognition (NBAR), Network Address Translation (NAT), and flexible pattern matching.