Item: Cisco 5500 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 5500)
Rating: 9
Author: Carlos Bedia

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco 5500 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 5500)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using this platform across our whole organization for standardization of the services we deliver in our department for each site in our topology. The NCS 5500 allows us to scale up to 16 slots on a 5516 with each card having its own features and memory addressing depending on the network design.

Pros and Cons

Pros

High-density 100g ports
Card features scale with application or design
Support for segment routing and WAN aggregation

Cons

When upgrading components of the NCS 5500 it can take a particularly long time and many steps to confirm additional components. Have all updates on the need basis instead of a one-step process.

Return on Investment

The chassis flexibility and use of many different feature set line cards extend the purpose and life, thus giving a better ROI per project than other choices.

Alternatives Considered

Juniper Enterprise Routers

Ultimately other Arista and Juniper choices were tested but design and testing did not give much detail as to why these are better overall or in comparison. We are already using Cisco in this level of the topology so that was most likely the strongest reason and fit the application we are using it for.

Other Software Used

Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000), Cisco Nexus, Cisco 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 1000)

Likelihood to Recommend

NCS 5500 is well suited for situations where you need high-density 100g ports for your application. It may not be the best choice if you need fewer bandwidth ports. There are other products, depending on the application, that might be better suited for what you need. Consider your application need and port requirements.

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

NCS 5500 Converged Solution