Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) vs MikroTik Routers and Switches

Likelihood to Recommend

I can recommend this ASR 9000 Series model for the locations which are very Big like data centers, large offices, and service provider networks. Which will enhance the performance. We cannot use this router in small deployments. This is an advanced technology model which has many features like orchestrating services across a converged network and enabling on-demand service capabilities.

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Mohd Shahid Ali

Pre-Sales Network Consultant

Al Khalili GroupInformation Technology & Services, 51-200 employees

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MikroTik is suited for large companies that require advanced distributions in terms of contracted bandwidth, and in the same way, allows a single device to specify filtering and firewall rules without acquiring an additional device. There is a range for small companies which is more economical and less robust, but in case it's not necessary, such a strict control over the data consumption of the company is not a feasible solution.

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Carlos Alberto Pedron Espinett

Especialista de Desarrollo

ARCA International GroupBanking, 201-500 employees

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Pros

[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.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Affordable, it has more features compared to other brand at the same price.
Widely available, by today it's easy to obtained one, even online retailers sell it.
Highly customizable, you may write a powerful script to enhance the function.
Flexible, you can make different configuration approach based on you needs.

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Alex Anwar

Aerospace IT Specialist

CommunicAVIA Pte LtdAirlines/Aviation, 1-10 employees

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Cons

[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.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employees

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Some of the wiki articles have not been updated or are not accurate enough. We spent a couple of days trying to find an example of implementing a mobile IPSec client solution. But once this has been implemented, it has been solid (always worked). A bigger community would help, and I am finding it hard to find the time to contribute to these articles.

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Adrian Takacs

Infrastructure Engineer

X-Net SolutionsInformation Technology and Services, 1-10 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

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

Usability

Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) 9.1

Based on 1 answer

[I am] 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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MikroTik Routers and Switches 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Almost perfect, despite some issue that need to be addressed by the manufacturer. If this issue has been addressed, a full 10 mark will be given.

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Alex Anwar

Aerospace IT Specialist

CommunicAVIA Pte LtdAirlines/Aviation, 1-10 employees

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Support Rating

Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) 5.5

Based on 7 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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MikroTik Routers and Switches 8.5

Based on 3 answers

There is no SOC, NOC, where you can contact to try to resolve any difficulties. The problems that these devices have are solved largely through the community, with workaround alternatives, or if the support team responds to a request, the response times are too high for the current needs of technological communications.

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Tanner Moreno

Gerente

OvnicomTelecommunications, 51-200 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 [the] 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 Routers are one of the best in the market, however they are also very expensive and not suitable for a small deployment or any deployment which requires just a couple of routers. MikroTik on the other hand are less expensive and provides many features that you require for a small scale deployment. they fit in with the budget and do what you need them to.

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Umair Ali Khan

Network Administrator

Pak Suzuki Motor CompanyAutomotive, 1001-5000 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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First of all it's cheaper than Cisco routers.
It has more functionality than Cisco routers that cost 4 times more.
It has a GUI. But it has CLI too.

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Marcin Chabowski

Teacher

Zespół Szkół Elektronicznych in BydgoszczPrimary/Secondary Education, 51-200 employees

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Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) vs MikroTik Routers and Switches