Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) vs. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

Actually if we place it into the internet gateway, we do nothing in front of the firewall. Yes, it's working well also, if we put into the routing, it works well. But we should not use it instead of switch. Because some people tend to use the router instead of layer three suite. So yes, I try to use it.

Incentivized

Cisco ASA's are great for internal network connected access between a firewall and the central management server. And, for complex networks where high security requirements with overly strict compliance are necessary. For networks with limited connectivity to the core or for poor network connectivity these are not the best solution. There are other more stand-alone firewall's that do this better. These firewall's are a little more complex to set up to start with so significant knowledge of these devices is required to set them up and ensure they are best practice installed.

Incentivized

• The ISR 4000 is an excellent router for our voice services. We purchased CUBE licensing in order to do this.
• The ISR 4000 is an excellent router for security purposes as well. We purchased the security license with the router and that allowed us to run a Zone-Based Firewall.
• The ISR 4000 is very simple and straight forward to configure.

Incentivized

• ASA is our VPN concentrator. The client and server are very stable and very easy to use
• ASA also offers Intrusion Prevention, to an extent. This is also very useful for an improved security posture for a small company
• ASA allowed us to scale very quickly. We could onboard clients, partners, and consultants and give them a great onboarding experience as well
• Administrative costs with ASA are low. It's very easy to administer.

Incentivized

• A greater number of onboard WAN ports would be an improvement over the model we purchased, which only had two. [This] means we'll have to buy more expensive network cards to get more convenience.
• The small router was a plus in some branches, but it was a hindrance in others. Its width is about half the size of the rack, so we had to keep it on top of another device.
• When compared to its competitors, the rack mounting kit is unreliable and expensive to purchase.

Incentivized

• The ASDM software is at times a nightmare to install because of different java versions[.]
• [The firewall] could do with a power button, just to be able to do a hard reboot when needed[.]
• It would be nice to manage the firewall via the web on port 443[.]

Incentivized

We renew Cisco end of life devices with current models.

Incentivized

To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products

Incentivized

Cisco Integrated Services 4000 series routers are very easy to use and manage. With the use of integrated management controllers, you can deploy new sites within minutes

Incentivized

I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.

Incentivized

There is always room for improvement with support, but Cisco support has been good to me over the years. Being able to call or submit online TAC cases makes it so I can get my issues or questions answered faster. They have even added the TAC bot for TAC cases to get to support even faster!

Incentivized

The support is usually very good and gets back to you very quickly. However I had some instances of when two engineers will give me wildly different answers to what I thought was a simple question. Overall however I do rate the support highly and they are generally always very good.

Incentivized

If you planning on upgrading your network to software defined networks, Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers are the best. To successfully implement the project you need to plan and communicate with all your stake holders

Incentivized

It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment

Incentivized

We did not compare the Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers to other competitors as we used Cisco for a long period of time already. We selected this product as we used a lot of CISCO products in the past and with good support. Other products don't have the protocols that CISCO products have.

Incentivized

We were using [pfSense] before in our environment but we regularly facing difficulties over it due to software bugs & downtime. After implementing Cisco ASA, it resolved our availability issue & provides us a reliable solution with the best security features & easy to understand GUI.

Incentivized

• Can be used for ISE, Meraki access point, FTD firewall, works well, no worry about integration with any third party product. As this device can be multipurpose, ROI is faster and usable for longer period of time, as no EOL any time soon
• This is an integrated modular device so even if my small offices are closed over a period of time, this can be re-purposed for other requirements within organization
• This device supports WAN optimization within software. This reduces the requirement of that specific optimization device, which reduces my overall cost for a branch network

Incentivized

• Most network engineers have worked with ASA, so there is no need for re-training when adding or turning over staff
• Current configs from older devices plug in easily, and are operational on larger devices if an upgrade is required
• Many support options available

Incentivized