Cisco Enterprise Routers Reviews

We mainly use the solution for a branch router, and it works very efficiently. We use it for data centers and servers. 

The after-sales service and support Cisco offers are great. It's a great differentiating feature that sets them apart from the competition.

The features are good. They are robust and well-made, unlike other competitors, like Huawei, where the products are not made of good materials. 

The performance is quite good.  

It's scalable.

For the most part, it is straightforward to set up. 

We need more cloud functionality and more intelligent routing features.

They need to improve cost efficiency. It's an expensive product.

I've been using the solution for 15 years. 

This is a stable, robust product. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. The performance is excellent.

There are different sizes for the routers. You need to get the right sizing base don your needs. 

The solution is scalable. You can have one router per premises and multiple branches and it will work well in an enterprise any size.

They have data sheets online that are easy to access so that you can see the capacity of various routers. You just need to choose the right one for your business.

Support is great. The operator can open a case, and a Cisco support engineer can directly interact with the case to troubleshoot. They have a quick turnaround as well.

Cisco offers quality support. They are excellent. 

I'm also familiar with Huawei, and I find them to be not quite as well-made as Cisco. However, they both have similar functionality and serve the same purpose. 

The initial setup is straightforward. The setup doesn't take a long period of time. 

The deployment is very similar to what you would expect from other vendors. You do need to do some architectural design before implementing. You need to have a good understanding of the layout of the network and what you will need. 

Cisco does provide training online that is available readily from anywhere. Most people are quite familiar with Cisco, and those who are not can learn a lot online. 

How much technical staff you will need will depend on how big of a deployment you are planning. Typically, two to three engineers are sufficient. However, it can vary from project to project. 

The solution is a bit expensive. They should consider better pricing.

They have turned to subscription-based licensing. However, it may not be as cost-effective. 

Prices vary. There are different license models to choose from. 

I use various versions of the solution, from legacy routers to the latest version. It can be deployed on-premises and also has cloud solutions as well. 

Cisco is dominating the market in my region. 

I'd recommend Cisco Routers to others. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten based on the cost of the product, which is expensive. 

We primarily use the solution for connectivity and routing. It offers secure panel access. 

Enterprise routers help us to build a secure panel between our data center going to our other remote sites. It also helps with routing and is the main point of entry for our infrastructure.

The routing features are quite useful.

It is a stable solution.

The product can scale.

It's easy to set up.

Technical support ie very helpful. 

We haven't really had any issues. They have recently upgraded the technology and have recently improved many things. Most of what we needed they recently updated. We aren't missing any features. 

The solution is expensive.

I've been using the solution for ten years. 

The stability is excellent. I would rate it nine out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches. It is reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The scalability is good. I would rate it around eight out of ten. 

We have ten people who use it directly right now. 

Technical support has been quite good, and we are quite satisfied with the level of support on offer. 

Positive

We previously used Juniper and Extreme routers. Since I am mostly exposed to Cisco products, I do find Juniper routers to be a bit difficult to manage. 

The solution offers a pretty simple implementation. For the basic setup, it's really easy. The complexity comes to them when it comes to deploying the routing for the whole solution based on the company's requirements.

It usually requires four people to deploy and maintain the solution. That said, it depends on the data center and the size of the environment.

We have witnessed an ROI while using the product. 

I'd rate the solution two out of ten in terms of affordability. It's an expensive product. 

We're using version 15 or thereabouts. We updated it less than a year ago. 

Depending on the budget, I'd advise new users to go with Cisco. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

We have been using Cisco Enterprise Routers for building micro-networks and Internet networks for main VPN services, high-speed Internet access, and extending the network of customers.

I have found the most valuable feature of Cisco Enterprise Routers to be the simplicity of the command-line interface, it is very intuitive as to how the commands need to be configured for a specific use case. 

Over time things have changed where Cisco has not invested in improving the orchestration and simplifying it for people who do not want to get into the details. Cisco has not gone into that focus. Technologies such as MPLS and VPN, have become very difficult to use for many service providers. This is where you have the admission of software-defined networks which brought in a lot of simplicity when it comes to routing and functionality.

What Cisco Routers needs to do to improve is what they have already done with the SD-WAN solution. It is a very, elegant solution, but even though it is a pretty comprehensive solution, one of the problems with the Cisco solution is many customers do not use all the features. They must have a category of customer premises equipment, specifically for the managed service providers and enterprise networks that can be much more cost-effective from an IT perspective. The configuration can be simplified at the GUI level. It should be easier because any telecommunication provider only has an enterprise network nowadays. 

When I am running an SD-WAN as an enterprise, I have features that are capable of finding an alternate path when there is latency. I have yet to find a solution to integrate them. For example, if I am a managed services provider for an SD-WAN customer, how do I make sure that this feature is automatically taken care of by the service provider side by monitoring its own option. This managing from the service provider side in the SD-WAN solution does not exist, it is all only static provisioning right now. When you are doing the original provisioning it happens, but dynamically when the network changes due to quirks in the network, how does it actually handle it. If there was this kind of features it would help Cisco to become the best in the process. You need to have a more solution-specific understanding.

The parts management teams have to come up with features that will benefit the service provider and the enterprises if they want to be the best.

I have been working with Cisco Enterprise Routers for approximately 30 years.

The stability and bugs are more related to a Cisco internal issue because when I worked in the Cisco team in research and development, their internal procedures were very complex and they had a very bloated OS software. All those problems have been solved in approximately 2007. They have improved a lot of processes and areas. They brought more modularity into the code and they have strict mechanisms for fixing the software. Earlier the problem was that when they fixed the problem for one router, they had to go and fix the same issue in different code bases. For example, if there was a bug in QoS, Quality of Service, code and it was on a router that was also found to be in all the versions which of many other routers, they will fix on few of them. They will not fix many others because that would cause problems later in the deployment of the solution. This method has backfired a lot for Cisco.

They learned from their mistakes and started modularizing the code, they standardized the quality of service across the platforms and those problems went away. 

Now they have much more modular code and have done a very good job standardizing the CLI. This is what is helping the orchestration because the more complexity you have across different platforms it makes it very difficult for orchestration. You are able to do it but it makes it even worse. They needed big teams to manage the bug fixes and to understand how the bugs were going to be fixed. Now with the tools that are available, they have simplified a lot of the processes. The concept of segment routing and how can it be used for micro-segmentation, are wonderful features.

The lack of talent is the major challenge and is something that is widening. However, orchestration solutions will actually help. The more proficient technical support personnel can focus on the troubleshooting whereas the entry-level personnel can focus on the orchestration part and manage the services. The troubleshooting can be taken care of by the more technologically advanced personnel at level two support and the level three technical support should be in the position to go right down through the levels and be able to see what is going wrong and fix the issue.

There was a time when we had excellent technical support in Cisco. It has been 10 years since I left Cisco and one thing I can say is that over a period of time, the technical support of Cisco diminished. The problems were more related to the internal processes within the system and the hiring processes that were used. When you are hiring people for technical support you cannot just hire somebody based on CCIE or CCNA certification. You need people who are real engineers who understand the protocol at the level of detail that is required at the level of implementation and the software must be understood extremely.

Unfortunately, in CCIE they learn how to pass the exams, but they really do not know how to build real networks. There are people who are very good at networking in configuring but they are extremely bad when it comes to understanding computer architecture, what is error correction memory, how does it affect software performance, and what kind of problems it can bring. They have no idea at all. This causes a problem when attempting to troubleshoot the equipment.

These problems are what Cisco and all others face. Cisco has invested a lot in their teams, but if you have managers who do not know how to recruit the right type of people then you face a lot of challenges. Those working on routers, switches, networks, and their environments must have a good understanding of what an operating system is, what is the computer architecture, what is the architecture of the router, and what it is implemented in the protocol. It is very important to be aware of the tools that are in the customer environment, how is the customer using them, are they using them in the right way, or in the wrong way. These things also must be understood.

Most of the help personnel just focus on the software side of the problem. They are not worried whether the customer is getting the connectivity in the right way or not, you have to be supporting in the right way. When I was in a company called Wipro, which is a Cisco partner, I found that they did not know even know how to handle the information correctly. You feel a lot of challenges because of the way hiring is done. 

I am not sure how they handle new features or functionality nowadays but I used to do technology transfer to help people understand how a particular feature or the new functionality that is developed in the platform was supposed to be working, such as certain setup commands that I have used for configuration, the expected outputs, and some of the basic troubleshooting that was needed.

The prices of Cisco are mostly fair. Cisco is similar to BMW for the networking industry. If you compare it with other vendors, such as Huawei, they cannot match the service. Cisco solution serves as the BMW of the networking industry in the way that the others are trying to live up to those expectations. Cisco is justified in some of the pricing, not all the pricing, if you go to the Cisco website, you can see the detailed documentation.

I am currently working with Nokia and it is very difficult to find where the documentation is on the web. They do not even provide the datasheets, and they are only provided them on request for the equipment. How will a person really appreciate a company when it comes to that kind of solution? I can go to the Cisco website and look at the SD-WAN to see the validated designs, all the information, and understand them just by creating myself an account but not with Nokia. I am even trying to figure out what are the protocols that Nokia will use in their SD-WAN solution. It would be much easier to have documentation to compare the advantage and disadvantages. Cisco's openness in their documentation is one of the most appealing strengths of the company, it really gives you an indication of how open they are. The documents detail how much money they spend on it, and how they are helping the industry from an infrastructure perspective. Additionally, Cisco gives you talented individuals. There are people who are self-learners who will go to the website and look at the documentation, learn, and understand the software to find which functionality has a bug. When it comes to a Nokia, they will only help you if you are a managed service with a contract. Otherwise, you cannot even deploy their equipment, this is not a good practice.

I justify part of the pricing that Cisco has but not the full model. There is a 25 percent price increase over the Nokia and it is justified for what Cisco delivers to its customers. I am calculating not just the pricing for just the routers, but the overall price, including openness and how much support they can handle. They are excellent. If you run a network without software support from Cisco and call technical support they will help. For example, they will indicate the problem exists because you upgraded the software and if you have a contract, you can automatically download the software to fix the problem. This would not be the case with Nokia, you will need them to be involved, they select the managed services, and that makes it extremely difficult for people to afford. 

Cisco is way too expensive for small and medium businesses. They must lower their prices in the lower range equipment. They need to make sure that they do not ignore that market segment because they will lose it for good. They will be gone from the Asian market and they will survive with only those companies which are extending their arms into India and South Asia because of the large companies that are there. They will not be able to penetrate the markets in all small and medium businesses and will not thrive.

I have evaluated Huawei and Nokia solutions. Nokia solutions are pretty good. However, in their software, I have heard from many of my friends, they have some type of secrecy that they follow that is very difficult for me to digest.

It is important for smaller companies to focus on understanding how deployments are done. The learning should be done from the perspective of deployment operations because whether you are an enterprise or a service provider you are buying these routers and offering a service to the internal or external customers as a service provider. You need to understand how these platforms and overall solutions help you to build a network faster and which part of it reduces the cost. Many of the smaller companies do not understand the operational expenses well enough, they will end up doing all kinds of Ad Hoc configurations with half the knowledge, and they will run into problems and it will be expensive.

I rate Cisco Enterprise Routers a six out of ten.

In my company, the tool is used mostly in our branches.

The benefit from the use of the product in my company stems from the fact that it is a tool that is considered to be a leader in the market while offering good support and stability, making it an overall good product.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the product's overall look and feel is good, making it a user-friendly tool.

The product's pricing is an area that is too fuzzy to deal with, in my opinion, making it an area where improvements are required.

The product's deployment phase can be made slightly better and more intuitive.

I have been using Cisco Enterprise Routers for ten to twelve years.

It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Around 110 people, consisting mostly of members of my company's IT team and network administrators, use the solution in my company.

During weekdays or normal days, it is easy to get hold of Cisco's support team, but during holidays or weekends, it becomes challenging and problematic for users to reach the support team. It is important to know that the support offered by Cisco is comparatively better than the support offered by its competitors.

The solution's deployment phase is okay since it is a process that may not seem too easy, but at the same time, one may not experience any hassles.

I rate the product's deployment phase a five out of ten.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

Considering the configuration phase that takes time, the solution can be deployed in a time frame between three to four hours to two or three days.

In comparison with other products, I rate the product's ability to provide my company benefits in terms of time and funding at twelve or thirteen, even if the benchmark you provide is ten to the maximum.

I rate the product's price a six or seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is very cheap. Apart from the licensing costs attached to the solution, a user has to pay towards the product's RMA and support costs.

My company's support team, consisting of 20 to 25 engineers, deals with the product's upgrades, failover testing, and everything else.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

We use the solution to create a secure connection between IT devices and the ISP network.

The solution allows us to connect our web applications to the systems and enable security control on the ISP network.

The solution has a robust performance and provides essential features for router switching and operations. Also, its technical support team is well-trained, and some hold CCNA certifications.

The solution's price could be better. Also, they could provide combined features for total security, including access points for Wi-Fi. In addition, there needs to be an integration with SD-WAN.

We have been using the solution for more than 30 years.

The solution is very stable.

The solution's scalability depends on the type of device.

The solution's technical support services are excellent. 

The solution's initial setup process is easy. Although, it might appear complicated compared to devices based on the graphical interface. An expert can deploy it in 30 minutes to an hour. At the same time, an end user might take a day to complete the process.

We received technical assistance from the solution's distributors and resellers.

The solution is expensive.

The solution is very stable compared to other products.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The most valuable feature is the command prompt, which is very user-friendly.

There have been multiple issues when updating iOS to Cisco routers. 

I've been using Cisco Enterprise Routers for four years.

The stability of Cisco Routers is fine, and their performance is good.

Cisco Routers are very scalable.

The initial setup was of medium difficulty.

Cisco's prices could be cheaper.

I would rate Cisco Enterprise Routers as ten out of ten.

We use this solution to secure and separate our network. We use the router to install the internet gateway.

When there is a problem, it hampers the scope of work. So if they could reduce the response time, it'll be helpful to us. In addition, the UI could be more user-friendly.

We have been using this solution for the last two years. It is deployed on-premises.

It is a stable solution. Cisco devices are very stable.

It is very scalable. We have two sites, our head office site and our factory site. We have a total of about 1600 users on the factory site. We only require four to five people for maintenance, and the maintenance has different levels, admin, physical and support maintenance. There are three people in admin maintenance and three to four in support and other maintenance.

We have not used any technical support from Cisco.

We used Cisco Router 2911 before this.

There was some complexity in setting up the existing network to the new network. It took almost six months to implement. However, the timeline was impacted by COVID. There were no issues with the product, but the issue was upping the tunnel and upgrading systems.

Our vendor and partner helped us with installation. The vendor did the initial configuration, and now we are taking care of the maintenance.

I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Cisco Enterprise Routers are the best. I am satisfied with this product.

The commands are easy to understand.

While the commands are easy to understand, and you will find a mixture, if you put a question mark on them then it will create problems.

The improvements will improve our company management and our system compatibility.

I have been working with Cisco Enterprise Routers for two years.

It is stable. We have not had any issues with stability.

It's a scalable product. We have a total of 5,000 employees in our company that we use Cisco Enterprise Routers for.

We are troubleshooting for our clients. Our company is a telecom based company. We provide internet data to all of India.

We have three companies on our site with technical issues that require immediate support.

We have worked with other routers, but Cisco is the best.

Cisco is easy to deploy and easy to set up.

The price is reasonable.

We pay for licensing every year.

I would rate Cisco Enterprise Routers a nine out of ten.