Cisco 2000 Series Connected Grid Routers (CGR 2000) vs. Cisco 800 Series Industrial ISR (IR 800)

These may not be the fastest or latest [technology] when it comes to routers, but for their class, they are great. If you were you put a similarly priced router out in the places these things can run it would be dead within a year. Also, you don't need to have an elaborate networking closet to get these into. They work well in small, hot, or potentially dusty places with ease.

Incentivized

The [Cisco 800 Series Industrial ISR (IR 800)] is great when we need to add a small new site in a very short time. Our previous experience with these units makes the roll-out of new sites quick and almost seamless. The 800 series excels in locations where we want to tunnel all traffic back to the core site. Split tunneling for "SD-WAN" type use is not as functional as in other products.

Incentivized

• Rugged construction
• No special heating or cooling requirements
• Part of the Cisco ecosystem, so no special maintenance

Incentivized

• Small factor
• Low cost
• Fast configuration
• Switch port

Incentivized

• Cisco has some troubles with licensing hardware still unless you're on smart licensing
• Price with Cisco equipment is usually high
• Bugs found in the interface

Incentivized

• Most are single power supply
• If they aren't a full 19" 1U device you have to purchase rack ears separately from the device
• VPN tunneling can be a bit of a configuration challenge

Incentivized

We are already looking at more purchases

Incentivized

My experience is that there is always something that proves to be just a bit tedious to get figured out but once you do it is easily duplicated

Incentivized

Cisco routers can be configure and forgotten unless you are adding to the configuration or on the rare troubleshooting event.

Incentivized

Cisco routers can be configure and forgotten unless you are adding to the configuration or on the rare troubleshooting event.

Incentivized

Have not had to use support yet but would follow our current Cisco process.

Incentivized

People have bad days and some things are deemed not critical enough to fix.

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My training was through a third party that had good knowledge but wasn't able to answer all of my questions.

Incentivized

The more you can plan in advance the easier the deployment will be.

Incentivized

We didn't look outside of the Cisco branded routers since we wanted to manage it as part of the enterprise and not have a "one-off" router.

Incentivized

The Meraki Z3 falls into roughly the same category as the 800 series and requires no daughter card for PoE. The Meraki MX are more expensive and require more infrastructure to support. The Meraki units also completely stop working when licensing is not renewed, and are more in the class of an SD-WAN product.

Incentivized

Not every router can handle all situations and so you have to purchase the upgrade to do handle the new requirements.

Incentivized

• Saved money on replacing standard routers that die in those environments
• Saved time with the easy linking and connection options
• Given us peace of mind that the device will continue to run without intervention

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• Investment in education
• High price
• Easy material

Incentivized