Cisco 1000 Series Connected Grid Routers (CGR 1000) vs Cisco 500 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 500)

Likelihood to Recommend

Cisco Routers do well at everything from small home office networks that require basic security to large scale service provider implementations that include SD_WAN security. Their routers scale well and they have everything from small 4 port access routers to large enterprise Core routers that function as the backbone of very large networks.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Food & Beverages Company, 51-200 employees

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Well suited for10G aggregation at network edge. Small managed networks such as school districts or distributed enterprise campus. Not well suited to RPHY aggregation at network core — queuing in NCS540 results in jitter and poor RPHY performance. Allow port license purchases in smaller units. Better support for SLA performance monitoring capabilities would allow use as a box for 10G aggregation for Carrier Ethernet NNI handoff.

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Ben Wiechman

Director of Network Strategy and Engineering

ArvigTelecommunications, 501-1000 employees

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Pros

Segments the network.
Provides security through the use of Access Control Lists.
Makes routing decisions using routing protocols such as OSPF, RIP, BGP etc ...
Provides fault tolerance.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Food & Beverages Company, 51-200 employees

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Switching.
Routing.
Access.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Telecommunications Company, 11-50 employees

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Cons

Cisco Routers are more expensive than other competitors.
Cisco Routers require leaning of the command line interface, complicated stuff for non-technical people.
Interchangeability is limited with some other manufacturers because Cisco sometimes uses proprietary protocols.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Food & Beverages Company, 51-200 employees

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MPLS feature set on NCS520
Full support for RFC2544, Y.1564 across the product line
Greater clarity of the impact of smaller buffers on NCS540 when compared to other Qumran chipsets — some use cases like RPHY aggregation at network core are not a good fit.

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Ben Wiechman

Director of Network Strategy and Engineering

ArvigTelecommunications, 501-1000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Cisco and HPE Routers are comparable products. Both do the job well without many differences. I would say HP Routers are easier to configure but come with a small performance hit compared to Cisco routers of the same size/scope. Cisco has the brand recognition and many more certified professionals using them though.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Food & Beverages Company, 51-200 employees

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Higher 10G port density on NCS540Availability of 25G/40G/100G provides greater flexibilityGood choice when full line rate is not neededGood choice when full capabilities of ASR9000 are not required

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Ben Wiechman

Director of Network Strategy and Engineering

ArvigTelecommunications, 501-1000 employees

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Return on Investment

Cisco products have 99.9999% up time availability and it allows a quick ROI in terms of our production network being available when its needed.
Cisco routers perform network security tasks well and keeps our network secure without slowing down our business transactions.
Cisco productrs last longer than our previous vendors, this ROI has been significant in lower replacement costs.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Food & Beverages Company, 51-200 employees

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Relatively low cost access layer device.
Very cost effective means of getting 10G interfaces.
Some features available on other devices out of the box are more complex or absent on the NCS without licensing or assistance.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Telecommunications Company, 11-50 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No