Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) vs. Cisco Catalyst IR1800 Rugged Series Routers

It is very well suited to act as your aggregator / core switch for mid to large facilities. it is flexible enough to really be useable in small environments but costs may hinder that. It has redundancy of power and management blades that does add a lot of peace of mind and security. Really the only reason you would not use a 9000 series is frankly cost and/or real requirements for performance. They have several versions of this model, plus they have an entire set of lines that can accommodate nearly as much as the 9000. Less demand or less of a budget can weigh in the decision to select this particular model.

Incentivized

My company is not so big to test the router on its highest limits. I can tell only that it works great and does not ask us for unexpected maintenance, service or unpleasant surprises. It works perfect and makes it's job the best.

Incentivized

• [Cisco 9000] Series [Aggregation Services] Routers are exceptionally reliable when compared to other market options.
• One strength of Cisco routers, in general, is their compatibility with any standard market tools from other vendors.
• [It is] unmatched in terms of sheer performance.
• [It] comfortably supports very strong throughput requirements.

• Partakes minimal disruptions under mobility while in use by technicians.
• Has high bandwidths
• The routers are secure from multiple network attacks.

Incentivized

• [The] upgrade process [is] 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 configuration.
• [There are] 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.
• [It has] 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.

Incentivized

• Programming can be complicated for new users
• An easier VPN setup would be a good value add to this product
• PoE for IP Phones requires an add-on daughter card
• The daughter card add expense and requires that the 800 series unit be opened to install card

Incentivized

This depends on when Cisco EOL the product.

Incentivized

We are already looking at more purchases

Incentivized

[I am] always impressed with Cisco products, from the functionality to the customer support.

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

In some ways, the platform is a big improvement over our previous IOS and NX-OS devices: They offer version-controlled configuration staging/commits. They have a robust portfolio of network protocols and features even beyond datacenter devices. Due to the use of NPUs instead of relying entirely on ASICs for forwarding, new versions of the software are able to improve hardware performance and capacity. Unfortunately, I have run into more bugs on IOS-XR than I ever did on IOS or even NX-OS (which has a shocking number of bugs of its own) and you have to be a licensing guru to get your order right the first time.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

When we are integrating the ASR9000 router with other devices then there should be the same device that can cater to the throughput. We can use the Cisco 9600 Switch which can be easily integrated and can handle the speed in terms of uplinks 40G can be handled. Adding to this Cisco DNA Center can be integrated to do the automation and monitoring purposes.

Incentivized

The Cisco 800 Series Industrial ISR routers have proven to be more reliable than the standard ISR routers within moving vehicles.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• We didn't need to buy new devices when we were increasing backbone capacity from 1G to 10G.
• Due to the modular nature of the software, when there is an issue with any running services, we need not reboot the whole device which affects all clients and availability.

Incentivized

• 800 Series units are a great value for very small sites
• The 800 series have allowed us to be agile in the opening of sites quickly in under-served rural areas.
• The only downside is having to renew the support every few years.

Incentivized