Cisco 5000 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 5000) vs. Cisco Small Business RV Series

The best scenario for us was to use the NCS 5000 for video conferencing. With several remote branches, we required reliable bandwidth for remotely connecting with employees. The NCS 5000 delivered the bandwidth we needed and provided the quality even with some low bandwidth sites.

Incentivized

It's best suited for small offices 10-25 users. Any more and its best to move away to a more higher tier. It will be less appropriate for a mid level company with a large staff. It's best for a small business with a limited budget and less strenuous security functionality.

Incentivized

• Higher port density allows for both higher bandwidth ports to the customer network as well as sufficient uplink capacity to the core.
• Small rack space, smarter design, smaller footprint allows for more hardware the fit in the same amount of rack space.
• Lower power consumption, less heat output results in savings within the data center environment.

Incentivized

• It has the typical firewall functions you'd expect in an all in one unit.
• GUI interface is easier to use by less technical users.
• The extra features such as VLANs are nice to have.

Incentivized

• Bugs
• Transport components stability
• Tac response time in some xases

Incentivized

• More switchports would be welcome, although this would increase cost and size
• Faster wireless would improve performance
• An SPF port would allow uplinking to more business-class switches

Incentivized

The features are good. The support is good. The resources to deploy, manage, and operate it are good. Customer's feedback and testimonials are good. The updates in terms of zero day vulnerabilities are good and timely. But, I still give an 8 out of 10 because I think the pricing, licensing, and GUI can be improved more.

Incentivized

CAPEX and OPEX are less for NCS routers.

Incentivized

Cisco's power really stems from its brand reputation and honestly not much else. No one ever got fired for deploying Cisco, and that's why it stands out. The Cisco Small Business RV Series is no exception there; the unit is built well and does the job. However, much more powerful alternatives for routers are out there—the biggest competitor being Ubiquiti. The UniFi routers are significantly more powerful in all regards, including routing speed, IPS/IDS speeds, and VPN functionality. Support for those is admittedly rather lackluster though, so if your network is critical, you are effectively self-insuring your equipment. For some that may be fine, but for others, that risk of extended downtime is just not worth it.

Incentivized

• Communication among remote employees and branches has increased.
• Quality of service from cloud and video applications.

Incentivized

• Very good ROI
• Most products have a CLI that is easy to use and understand.
• Very large feature set. Cisco offers numerous open standard and proprietary protocols and options in their code that other vendors lack parity with.

Incentivized