Cisco 500 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 500) vs. Cisco vEdge Routers

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.

Incentivized

Cisco vEdge Routers can be useful for customers who have many branches and need more than one WAN link. It is also useful for customers who want to reduce the cost that is associated with MPLS utilization. SDWAN technology is for customers who need it all. Although other vendors have the same product or technology, Cisco is still better because of the support from their expert engineers.

• Switching.
• Routing.
• Access.

Incentivized

• Nice design to fit in well with your modern network cabinet.
• Plethora of available ports and port types.
• Cutting edge security when paired with Cisco umbrella.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Need to be familiarized with the configuration.
• Need more time to be hands on with the GUI.

Cisco NCS is smaller and for us newer. Better cost with similar capabilities.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Keeping hackers and malicious code out of your network is a major positive.
• We've been able to reduce security incidents, thus saving us time.
• ROI is high on this product, as you can reduce the amount of devices at a site.

Incentivized