Cisco ISR 4000 series routers are very powerful and full-featured branch office routers as long as you don't exceed their throughput limits
March 29, 2020

Cisco ISR 4000 series routers are very powerful and full-featured branch office routers as long as you don't exceed their throughput limits

Paul Luchini | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000)

We are using Cisco ISR 4451 routers as the head-end routers for our agency-wide WAN. We use them to terminate ISP and MPLS tunnels from all our remote sites and are in the process of setting up pfr. We also use them as our agency-wide NTP servers. They have allowed us to scale up our connections to remote locations.

Pros

  • They handle are large number of IPSec tunnels.
  • They run the nearly-universal IOS-XE, so they're easy to support.
  • They have a decent amount of connectivity options, especially when you include add-in cards.

Cons

  • With the rapid growth in bandwidth requirements, their maximum throughput will be their limiting factor.
  • There are too many concurrent IOS-XE trains available.
  • We've had to upgrade code more frequently than we did with our ISR 3925 routers.
  • We were able to transition our ISR 4451s from head-end to branch office routers extending their value.
  • They are allowing us to move toward an IOS-XE standard, reducing support overhead.
  • They are flexible and full-featured enough to enable us to run pfr, IPSec, VoIP and basic security with no performance impact.
  • Cisco 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 1000)
We are currently running Cisco ASR 1001-HX routers as our head-ends, where they are strictly handling data, and Cisco ISR 4000 routers at branch locations, where they are terminating multiple circuits and IPSec tunnels, acting as VoIP gateways, and running pfr and basic security. The ISR 4000s are obviously not as powerful, but they are very flexible and full-featured.
We have consistently be very happy with Cisco TAC support whenever we've had to open cases. The one negative we've encounter with regards to the Cisco ISR 4000 series routers, in particular, is that compared to the previous routers we've used (Cisco ISR 2800, 3800, 2900 and 3900 series) we've had to upgrade code more frequently. Part of this may be due to the added complexity and/or running IOS-XE instead of IOS, but it has definitely been the case.

Do you think Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) again?

Yes

Cisco 800 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 800)
We originally used Cisco ISR 4451 routers as head-end routers, but as bandwidth requirements and circuit, sizes increased we have outgrown their capabilities in that role. We are now using ISR 4000 series routers at branch locations to replace our ISR 2900 and 3900 series routers. They are extremely capable in this role, and it is nice moving towards all of our routers and switches running IOS-XE. For smaller head-end deployments. ISR 4000s may still be viable but their limitation is definitely their throughput limits.

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