Item: Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers
Rating: 1
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We were sold this item over an FTD, being told that Secure Equipment Access would be the better way to go over VPN. But has been an uphill battle that took nearly a year and a half before we could even get this thing implemented, and then another year before Cisco would update things enough to give us MFA options.

Pros and Cons

Pros

reliability in harsh environments
flexibly power options

Cons

useability outside SEA
Cisco CDO integration
eliminate the need for zone based routing to function with SEA.

Return on Investment

Horrible impact to business because the need to be deployed with SEA
functioning strictly as a router it has been reliable in a very hard environment.

Usability

With how ours needed to be deployed, we needed to utilize the Cisco IoTOD. This has made doing anything to this router an absolute nightmare. Even using TAC to help us was impossible because even they gave up and handed us off to the developer of the dashboard who admitted that it was not ready to deploy let alone sell and it took us a year and a half to get this thing useable. But once it was set up, and as long as we do not use SEA or the IoT dashboard and just let this sit there, it has been working and had no issues with reliability.

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Secure Equipment Access and Cisco Catalyst IE3300 Rugged Series Switches

This product is brought down by the requirement of Secure Equipment Access to have the ability to address our problem in our environment. If Secure Equipment Access was not a part of our deployment, I think this would have been a solid and cost-effective solution to a controls DMZ router. I do how ever wish that it had the same CyberVision possibilities as the IE3300 switches.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers's feature set?

Did Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers go as expected?

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers again?

Other Software Used

Cisco Secure Equipment Access, Cisco Catalyst Center, Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Likelihood to Recommend

I can't say this is a good idea to use. The only use we were able to have for it at our company was for a DMZ firewall to a controls network. But with how it's been tied to SEA and its horrific deployment and functionality, I can not recommend this over a Cisco FTD with AnyConnect. I guess if you never need access or VPN, or if you need no communication between network and DMZ, these could work, but I would recommend going with something else.

Comments

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Good on its own, but avoid if you need Secure Equipment Access.

Software Version