Cisco 1000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 1000) vs Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)

• Quality of Service for managing Data priority
• Mean Time between Failures - We have found Cisco hardware is reliable
• Fast network performance and availability

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• Layer 3 multicast. It handles the additional load of multicast without issues. Other platforms we have used have had over-subscription issues.
• We've used several MPLS features such as pseudowire using bridge-domains as well as xconnects. Plenty of features to solve any design problem.
• IOS XR. I just love operating in IOS XR. Solve so many problems that exist in IOS.

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• Possibly higher port count on built in switch.
• External WiFi antenna connection to allow bigger WiFi coverage.
• More robust wall mount setup using screw slots, currently only 2.

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• Upgrade process overly complicated compared to NX-OS or IOS: new images and the current configuration need to be compiled into "golden IOS's". If you don't include the configuration, you will have a clean device with no config.
• Major bugs in every release. We have had to cycle through all of our routers 3 times in the last year for updates due to show-stopping bugs that did not come to light until after the changes were made in production.
• Terrible documentation. You have to mine their site to get to any documentation for recent versions of IOS-XR. If you make the leap from 32-bit cXR to 64-bit eXR then the documentation is more-or-less non-existent. Due to the internal architecture of hardware itself, technical specs can change from software version to software version, so don't expect any sort of firm scalability numbers. You'll have to rely on your sales engineer for that.

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• Once they are installed they just work. Even when a device enters EOL/EOS they keep chugging along.
• Good lifetime - they don't retire models so often that you can't keep up.
• Good extended support, this allows us to keep them in place as long as possible (or practical) and increases our ROI.

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• Higher reliability has significantly reduced the need for manual intervention
• Lower downtime ensures better top-line figures
• Although it may be difficult to quantify, I am certain that the higher performance does have an impact (maybe indirectly) on other business functions. High-performance routers are like the oil that keeps an engine running smoothly.

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