ASR1000, For the Win
June 19, 2018

ASR1000, For the Win

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Routers

We use the ASR1000 series for our Internet edge. We run with a full BGP feed with redundant routers and redundant Internet links. They provide us with highly available Internet access. This is a critical service for us because many of our core services are cloud-based. General access to the Internet is also a core service we provide. Even a short outage can generate a lot of trouble tickets and complaints.
  • For those who are used to Cisco, they are easy to use.
  • They interoperate well with other vendors. Everyone is compatible with Cisco.
  • Performance is excellent. I’ve never had a Cisco router that was unable to perform as Cisco says it will.
  • The CLI can sometimes be inconsistent. You get used to it, but could be better.
  • Programmability is hit and miss. Overall, newer code has better support for programmability.
  • Cisco’s pricing is relatively high. No one pays list price, so list prices are very high and can be off putting at first.
  • High availability has been achieved with our dual router configuration, though this is perhaps more a design success than a Cisco success.
  • We are primarily a Cisco shop. Keeping a unified platform simplified management and minimizes the need to train staff, especially at lower tiers of the support hierarchy.
  • Cisco devices have excellent longevity and last a long time. Cisco also has a decent trade in policy to recover some value when equipment is replaced.
Compatibility with our other devices wasn’t critical for this particular deployment. We just needed well supported OSPF and BGP implementations and a solid platform.
Our Internet edge routers provide our first line of defense by blocking obviously spoofed traffic. This reduces denial of service traffic and protects against the simplest threats. This reduces the load on more expensive firewalls.
Our Cisco Routers route well and never have any performance issues within their expected capacity. The routing protocol implementations are solid. They just work.
Cisco Routers are a better fit for my org. Juniper seemed to be the best comparison, but mainly we chose to remain with Cisco because our in-house knowledge was already there. We didn’t see a big enough difference in other options to make it worth the change.
Cisco Routers are well suited for any business environment at scales beyond SOHO/small business. If the business is small, Cisco may be more power and expense that can be afforded or is required. It depends on the business needs and complexity of the requirements.