Cisco Enterprise Routers Reviews

The major purpose of our using Cisco Enterprise Routers is to terminate the 0.2 internet links because we don't use net features on the router. We prefer to configure NAS and other publishing through Cisco activities. We use the routers to create GRE channels with our different sites.

We use Cisco routers, firewalls, switches, and the Cisco Eyes and NAT solution in our environment. I have also done some R&D to implement mass cloud infrastructure for my client.

We're using the ISR series at the moment. The version is 4451 or 4431. These are public routers. We have permitted our major internet links on these routers.

This is an edge device for my organization. Normally, the enterprise company has one or two Cisco routers because they use it for internet termination and PLS termination.

I am using version 16.4 of the ISR router.

It's highly stable. We rarely see any bugs or abnormalities in our Cisco routers, especially for the ISR series. We have used the ASR 1000, and that was highly stable.

You cannot configure internet policies or other options on Cisco routers. If you have a very limited budget, you can't afford two different pieces of equipment, and you can't afford yearly licensing.

I would like Cisco to launch a small business router that has firewall capabilities as well. It would be a great initiative for small businesses.

I would like to see two additional features: a remote access VPN with the MFA, multifactor authentication capabilities. At the moment, the ISR series only supports MFA, but not every company likes to use that tool. I think Cisco needs to consider MFA for the remote access VPN and should incorporate other MFA solutions as well.

I would also like there to be some firewall features included in the routers. I'm not talking about a full-fledged firewall feature, but a limited set of features that can be used on the small and medium-sized enterprise level. These two features would be a great initiative.

I would also like to recommend the licensing feature. Previously, the Cisco licensing model was either a perpetual or annual smart license. Now, Cisco has totally shifted over to the smart licensing feature, and perpetual licenses are about to be eliminated from Cisco. The licensing feature is a bit costly if we compare it to other vendors. The licensing features of the F5 are perpetual, but the support has periodic renewal. The license to use Cisco features like a firewall or the routers are actually yearly based and not perpetual.

The lead times are extremely high. Normally, it's six to eight months initially, and they prolong it to up to one year for new device delivery by Cisco.

If you say you need a brand new router, switch, or fiber from Cisco within one month, you will never get it, unless some stock is readily available with your vendor. Otherwise, it will initially take six to eight months, and then that will be prolonged to one year. This is what we're experiencing with our clients right now.

I have used Cisco Enterprise Routers since 2012.

It's highly scalable, but there is some cost involved. If you need one gig throughput, you don't need to procure another offer. You just need to purchase the throughput license, and you can increase the throughput. These are very costly licenses. 

I would rate the scalability as eight out of ten. 

For the initial setup, I would rate it as 10 out of 10. It's very user-friendly and simple to implement Cisco devices.

Deployment didn't take more than one hour.

Even the command line is very user-friendly. A layman could very quickly understand Cisco's command line.

We're an IT consulting company and we have our own engineers to deploy the solution. We provide IT services to the other companies in our country as well.

There are different series for the routers and different licenses for each series. It depends on which series you're going to choose and which router model you're going to choose in that series. There is a base license, throughput license, and boost performance license.

For a boost performance license, the cost is $2,000 to $2,500.

There is an additional cost for more scalability.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten. I'm only deducting a point because of the licensing cost. Scalability is very costly. Cisco is going to shift to smart licensing, which means you get the license for a specific period of time, and then you need to incur some cost to renew that license.

I highly recommend Cisco. It's highly stable and highly scalable, which is the reason why they're unable to fulfill orders globally.

Before I would recommend Cisco to someone, I would review the project and business needs. Why do they want to use the Cisco Enterprise router or Cisco equipment? What is the business nature? What are the requirements? What is the budget? These things need to be discussed before suggesting any solution. I am a solution provider, so it's the core business of my company to set up IT infrastructures for the other companies.

I always intend to know what kind of business someone is running, what are their prospects, what are the expectations from the infrastructure, and what is the total budget they want to incur on the infrastructure. For a businessman, IT is just an overload. There's a burden on the budget. If you have a garment business and someone suggests that you buy a $4,000 router, you will say, "Why?"

First of all, analyze your requirement, business, and network, and then I can suggest the best possible solution. It could be Cisco or another third party because if you say, "I have only $1,000 for this IT infrastructure," you will need to buy switches, the router, and everything else for $1,000. You can't even get a small enterprise router in the $1,000 range from Cisco.