Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) vs Cisco Small Business RV Series

Likelihood to Recommend

Any large enterprise with large throughput requirements for their business-critical infrastructure should use the ASR series routers without exception. The licensing cost might hit your pocket hard, but with the exceptional performance and reliability that the ASR series offers, it is easily the best option available in the market. It is the "tried and tested" router. Don't think twice, just go for it!

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Well suited for SMB and for organizations with multiple sites that need VPN connection. We've used it for 10-20 users per site with a 2-5 Mbps internet connection. It's less appropriate for large business with many users to be connectedBuilt-in WiFi features can give wireless modem capability. Dual-LAN-supported so you will get redundancy.

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Budi Ezeddin

Senior Technical Specialist

Synnex Metrodata IndonesiaInformation Technology & Services, 201-500 employees

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Pros

Layer 3 multicast. It handles the additional load of multicast without issues. Other platforms we have used have had over-subscription issues.
We've used several MPLS features such as pseudowire using bridge-domains as well as xconnects. Plenty of features to solve any design problem.
IOS XR. I just love operating in IOS XR. Solve so many problems that exist in IOS.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Telecommunications Company, 10,001+ employees

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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.

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Paul Knopp

Systems Analyst

H5 ElasticsConsumer Goods, 51-200 employees

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Cons

Upgrade process 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 config.
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.
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.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employees

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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

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Chemicals Company, 1-10 employees

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Usability

Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) 9.1

Based on 1 answer

Always impressed with Cisco products, from the functionality to the customer support

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Military Company, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) 6.5

Based on 5 answers

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.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employees

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Cisco Small Business RV Series 7.7

Based on 2 answers

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.

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John Patrick Duro

Security Analyst II

AsurionInsurance, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Juniper was more security/less routing and Cisco was more routing/less security. Redback was Ericsson which is easy when creating VRFs known as contexts. When doing show command it would give you all the information within that context. In Cisco you need to perform 3 or more commands to get the same info.

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Verified User

General Manager in Other

Telecommunications Company, 501-1000 employees

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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.

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Verified User

Team Lead in Engineering

Media Production Company, 51-200 employees

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Return on Investment

Higher reliability has significantly reduced the need for manual intervention
Lower downtime ensures better top-line figures
Although it may be difficult to quantify, I am certain that the higher performance does have an impact (maybe indirectly) on other business functions. High-performance routers are like the oil that keeps an engine running smoothly.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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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.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No