Cisco Certified Network Consultants

Basically, routers depend on computation to move data using sophisticated algorithms, offering intelligence at the expense of speed. Switches, on the other hand, rely upon mostly predefined hardware configurations to forward traffic at the fastest possible rate. The current generation of routers usually incorporate Layer 2 switches, and many modern switches include some Layer 3 routing functionality. Routers developed by Cisco, the supplier of 90% of the industry's routers, have advanced dramatically in capability and performance and Cisco now offers an extensive portfolio that includes routers designed to handle the requirements of users from households to nationwide service providers.

The most recent ISR routers from Cisco offer the speed and integrated functionality to support IP voice and video as well as virtual environments while also providing high availability, remote management, easy expandability, and enhanced security and compliance. These routers allow you to establish a solid foundation for an IT environment that can evolve seamlessly as you add more workers, open new sites, activate additional capabilities, give access to your system to clients and vendors, and build an expanding mobile user base. Progent's Cisco certified CCIE network engineers offer immediate and economical online support to help you to select, configure, administer, update, and troubleshoot Cisco's most advanced router technology and can assist you to support your older routers or migrate non-disruptively to Cisco's newer router solutions.

Cisco Routers Designed for Home Offices and Small Offices and Branches
Cisco's routers for small businesses and remote offices offer low-cost and dependable no-frills alternatives that allow limited groups of users to have secure access to the Internet. All these fixed-configuration desktop devices feature at minimum four switched Ethernet with wireless options and integrated firewall for enhanced protection. Built for easy installation, administration, and troubleshooting, Cisco's entry-level routers reduce total cost of ownership by cutting acquisition and operational investments. Progent's remote support specialists have in-depth backgrounds delivering fast and economical IT assistance for small businesses to configure and maintain these routers, and Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE network consultants can assist you to determine ways these routers can increase the business value of your IT system.

ISR 900 Series Integrated Services Routers
Cisco's ISR 900 Series routers are compact, fanless, fixed-configuration appliances designed for SMBs, branch offices, and home offices. These entry-level routers have four managed GE LAN ports and offer Metro Ethernet, LTE, and DSL WAN connectivity. Cisco's ISR 900 router family provides triple the IPsec performance of the ISR 800 Series family of routers. All ISR 900 Series routers offer GETVPN, DMVPN, FlexVPN, and firewall. VPN throughput is up to 250 Mbps. All versions support up to 50 VLANs. Supported automatic failover technology for business continuity include Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), and Multigroup HSRP. Provisioning and management can be done with Cisco Configuration Professional Express, Cisco DNA Center, and Cisco IOS Software. ISR 900 Series routers do not work with Cisco SD-WAN.

The Cisco ISR 921 router comes with dual GE WAN ports, LTE Cat 4, and an internal power supply. GE WAN VPN performance is 150 Mbps. The ISR 926 and ISR 927 models use external power and support a single WAN interface, Category 4 LTE, VDSL2 and ADSL2/2+ high-speed broadband. VPN throughput for both devices is 150 Mbps. The top-of-the-line Cisco ISR 931 features dual GE WAN and includes an internal power supply. GE WAN VPN performance is 250 Mbps.

Cisco Meraki MX Series SD-WAN Security Appliances
The Cisco Meraki MX family of desktop routers provide software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) and cloud-based unified threat management (UTM) in one compact device able to handle 50 to 200 users. Each MX series appliance needs to be licensed for the Meraki cloud. For sites having multiple WAN network connections (e.g., MPLS, broadband, cellular), SD-WAN technology allows admins to specify the WAN interface an app uses or to create performance-based rules to select the preferred connection. Cisco Meraki MX fixed-configuration desktop security appliances share key features that include:

• App and identity-based firewalling
• Content and web search filtering
• PCI-compliant Intrusion Detection and Prevention
• Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) with reputation-based filtering
• Load balancing to aggregate multiple WAN connections into one fast connection with policy-based QoS, traffic shaping, and fast failover
• Works with all IPsec VPN devices and services
• USB port for fast 3G/4G failover
• Wi-Fi versions of each model have 802.11ac Wave 2 2x2 MU-MIMO

Cisco 1000 Family ISR Branch Routers
Cisco 1000 Series Integrated Services Routers powered by Cisco IOS XE software are a selection of fanless routers intended to provide network connectivity, wireless support, and multilayer security for small and midsize businesses, enterprise branches, retail outlets, kiosks, and machine-to-machine (M2M) venues. Multiple parallel processing cores and the ability to run Cisco IOS XE software allow these routers to offer capabilities consistent with Cisco's complete line of modern Enterprise routers. 1000 Series ISR routers are offered with 4 or 8 LAN switch ports and offer Gigabit Ethernet packet forwarding. Available features include Power over Ethernet (PoE) and PoE+, zero-touch provisioning, plus a selection of built-in or pluggable options such as LAN, WAN, WLAN, G.fast DSL, 3G/4G Advanced wireless, 802.11 wireless, and SFP. Cisco 1000 Series ISR models work with Cisco's SD-WAN services for transparent multiple-cloud access, advanced cybersecurity, and centralized management across hybrid network models of any complexity.

Cisco's 1RU or desktop ISR 1100-4G router comes with four integrated GE ports, integrated 3G/4G LTE with two LTE SMA sockets, and a micro-SIM slot. Encryption throughput is 200 Mbps. The ISR 1100-6G router also includes two 1G SFP Fiber ports and delivers encryption performance of 520 Mbps. Cisco's desktop ISR 1101-4P router has four built-in switched GE connections, supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi as well as 3G/4G LTE, and features encryption performance of 280 Mbps. The Cisco ISR 1109-2P/4p desktop routers include two or four integrated GE interfaces and dual pluggable 3G/4G LTE ports. Encryption speed is 200 Mbps.

The Cisco rackmount or desktop ISR 111x-4P/8P routers come with four or eight integrated GE ports (two or four provide Power over Ethernet) and feature VDSL2/ADSL2+, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 3G/4G LTE wireless, and SFP Fiber. Encryption rate is 280 Mbps. Cisco's rackmount or desktop ISR 1111X-8P router comes with eight integrated GE interfaces (four with Power over Ethernet) and a port for 1G SFP. Encryption throughput is 340 Mbps. The ISR 112x-8P router has eight built-in GE ports with PoE and supports SHDSL, VDSL2/ADSL2+, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 3G/4G LTE, and SFP. Encryption performance is 340 Mbps. The ISR 1161X-8P router has eight built-in switched GE interfaces with PoE and supports 3G/4G LTE wireless and SFP. Encryption packet processing speed is 450 Mbps.

Cisco Catalyst 8000 Series WAN Edge Platforms for SD-WAN and Routing
Cisco's Catalyst 8000 Series routers are modular devices intended to work at the WAN edge in support of hybrid networks that can incorporate a mix of public and private clouds and cloud-hosted applications. Catalyst 8000 devices use Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN Software and offer expandability, advanced cybersecurity, and 5G access. Performance is optimized via custom hardware, a multicore architecture, high port density, and in-line encryption. Cisco's subscription software services offer continual access to the latest SD-WAN technology and enable centralized management with advanced cybersecurity, application-based policies, network segmentation, and cloud readiness.

Cisco Catalyst 8200 Series WAN Edge Routers
Cisco Catalyst 8200 Series routers are upgrades to Cisco's 4300 Series Integrated Services Routers, offering higher IPsec throughput and expandability, hardware-accelerated crypto, plus greater built-in WAN interface density. These 1RU appliances are designed to bring Cisco's SASE, SD-WAN and 5G-interface technology to enterprise branches and the enterprise access edge. The Catalyst C8200L-1N-4T router features four CPU cores, enables 500 Mbps IPsec traffic, and permits 1,500 SD-WAN tunnels. Cisco's Catalyst 8200L router does not support container-based apps. The Catalyst C8200-1N-4T model includes eight CPU cores, provides 1Gb IPsec performance, supports 2,500 SD-WAN tunnels, and enables edge computing with existing container models. Both appliances include one NIM slot, one PIM slot, two 1 Gigabit Ethernet WAN ports, and two 1 Gigabit Ethernet WAN Small-Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) ports. 4-port and 8-port 1G Ethernet switch NIM modules are available for both 8200 models.

Catalyst 8300 WAN Edge Routers
Cisco Catalyst 8300 Series WAN Edge routers are designed to replace Cisco's 4400 family of ISR Routers, delivering Cisco's secure SD-WAN architecture to medium-sized and large enterprise branches seeking high WAN IPSec performance with unified SD-WAN services. Advanced capabilities include 5G wireless support, built-in security, WAN MACSec, integrated enhanced Layer 2 switching, and DPI with application-aware optimization. Cisco Catalyst 8300 Series routers enable edge computing for an existing container architecture for Cisco UCS-E modules offered on Cisco's 4000 line of ISR routers. All models in the Catalyst 8300 line allow 4,000 SD-WAN tunnels and include dual power supplies for improved uptime.

The Cisco Catalyst 8300-1N1S-6T router is a 1RU device that includes eight CPU cores and offers 2G SD-WAN throughput and IPsec data rates as high as 1.9Gbps. The unit comes with a single Service Module expansion slot, one Network Interface Module slot, and six integrated 1-Gigabit Ethernet WAN interfaces. The Catalyst 8300-2N2S-6T router is a 2RU router that includes 8 CPU cores and supports 2G SD-WAN performance and IPsec data rates of up to 1.9Gbps. The appliance includes two SM plug-in slots, two Network Interface Module slots, and six built-in 1G Ethernet WAN interfaces. The Catalyst C8300-1N1S-4T2X router model is a 1RU appliance that includes eight CPU cores and delivers 5G SD-WAN throughput and IPsec performance up to 15Gbps. The model has one a single Service Module expansion slot, a NIM slot, two built-in 10-Gigabit Ethernet WAN interfaces, and four built-in 1G Ethernet WAN ports. The Cisco Catalyst C8300-2N2S-4T2X model is a 2RU router that features 12 CPU cores and offers 5G SD-WAN data rates and IPsec data rates as high as 18Gbps. The unit has two Service Module plug-in slots, two Network Interface Module slots, two built-in 10-Gigabit Ethernet WAN interfaces, and four built-in 1G Ethernet WAN ports. LAN modules modules available from Cisco range from a four-port 1G Ethernet switch NIM module to a 50-port Catalyst L2 switch Service Module.

Cisco Catalyst 8500 Series Aggregation Edge Routers
The Cisco Catalyst 8500 Series Aggregation Edge routers are fixed form factor, 1RU aggregation models for SD-WAN and colocation environments. Integrated features include route processor, embedded services processor, and aggregation hardware for multiple interfaces and connectivity choices. IPsec performance is twice that of Cisco's earlier generation ASR1001-X aggregation services router. Flexible connectivity options include 1GE to 100 GE WAN ports. These routers come with dual AC or DC power supplies for improved resilience. Software subscription packages provide ongoing use of Cisco DNA Center Software for SD-WAN and routing and offer unified management of cybersecurity, application-based policies, network segmentation, and cloud support.

The Catalyst C8500L-8S4X router is intended to offer a similar basic functionality as Cisco's ASR 1000 router. The C8500L-8S4X has four 1/10GE WAN interfaces and delivers up to 20 Gbps Cisco Express Forwarding aggregate performance. SD-WAN IPsec throughput is up to 19Gbps. The Catalyst C8500-12X router includes 12 integrated 1/10GE WAN ports and delivers as high as 120 Gbps aggregate performance. SD-WAN IPsec performance can reach 51 Gbps. The C8500-12X4QC model comes with four integrated 1/10GE WAN ports and eight 1-Gigabit interfaces and delivers up to 200 Gbps aggregate performance. SD-WAN IPsec performance is up to 68 Gbps.

Cisco Integrated Services G2 Routers
Cisco's ISR G2 routers are intended to offer branch offices of large businesses with advanced video and voice applications, virtualization, security, and dependable WAN access. Integrated Services Generation 2 routers feature an architecture that protects prior investments in service modules for first-generation Integrated Services Routers and lowers down-the-line costs by permitting easy upgrades to additional modules when they are developed. In comparison to older ISR routers, Cisco's Integrated Services G2 routers offer 2-7 times more throughput, substantially more, and easier maintenance. All Cisco ISR Generation 2 routers support gigabit switching and incorporate multi-core processors and multigigabit fabric for faster throughput. ISR Generation 2 routers also support intelligent power management for improved energy conservation.

A notable advance with Integrated Services G2 routers is the IOS Software Universal image which includes all of the IOS feature sets so that your company can rapidly authorize and activate new services when desired without needing to acquire and copy a different IOS Software image to yourCisco router. Progent's group of CCIE network engineers offer proven skills to help your business to design, implement, and support multi-location installations of Cisco Integrated Services Generation 2 routers that improve satellite office efficiency and cut the price of upgrades and support.

Cisco's ISR 800 Series Routers
Cisco's 800 Series of ISR routers has been superseded by the faster Cisco ISR 900 family but remains widely deployed. Cisco's extensive portfolio of 800 Series ISR routers is made up of desktop, fanless appliances intended for small businesses, branch locations, retail shops, telecommuters, and customers of broadband service providers. A wealth of models in Cisco's 800 Series family of routers have been developed with many options over the course of many years. The 881 line of ISR routers exemplifies the wide array of options available within Cisco's 800 Series product family. Various models in Cisco's 881 Series router catalog can enable unified media networks by delivering voice and video, Wi-Fi and cellular wireless and data in one integrated router and switch. Built-in security can include encryption, VPN, firewall, and URL filtering. For survivability, available features for 881 routers include redundant wide area network connections or support for wired high-speed WAN links such as DSL as well as multiple 3G and 4G wireless connections all built into a single appliance.

The baseline Cisco 881 includes a 4-port 10/100-Mbps managed switch that delivers 15 Mbps throughput, the ability to handle up to 20 users, two-port integrated Power over Ethernet, and IPv6 compatibility. The Cisco 881W ISR router supports 802.11g/n Wi-Fi. Cisco's 881 SRST router includes four FXS ports and 1 FXO port for PSTN fallback with Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST). With a Cisco CUBE license, the Cisco 881 ISR router supports SIP trunk connectivity as a replacement for legacy PRI lines or FXO voice connectivity to a PSTN carrier. SIP trunks can also support offsite agents in Cisco Call Center environments.

4000 Series ISR Routers
Cisco's 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISRs) are compact modular and expandable platforms intended for businesses with a large number of branch offices and offsite workers requiring direct access to in-house data centers and public clouds across VPNs and the Internet. Cisco's 4000 series provides the bandwidth needed for hybrid WAN environments to support mobile workers, cloud services, and multimedia applications by utilizing network optimization, deep packet inspection, and advanced traffic-management techniques. Models in the 4000 product line run Cisco's powerful IOS XE software, come in a 1-rack-unit (RU) or 2RU form factor, are able to handle as much as 2 Gbps of throughput, and can include up to 3 interface slots, 2 service module slots, 4 built-in 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, and 8 CPU core server modules. ISR 4000 models can support integrated Gigabit Ethernet, T1/E1, T3/E3, PR1, xDSL and other interfaces. To manage unified communications, Cisco's 400o ISR provides extensive edge support technology for SBC, telephony fault tolerance, and Time Division Multiplexing gateways.

The major difference between the Cisco 4400 and 4300 Series Routers is redundant power supply capability in the 4400 Series, providing a higher level of availability. The 4321 Integrated Services Router comes in a 1 RU desktop package and includes two network interface modules, delivers as much as 100 Mbps performance, and supports 240 Digital Voice and Video Channels. Cisco's 4331 model has a 1 RU form factor and includes two NIMs, provides as much as 300 Mbps performance, and supports 360 Digital Voice and Video Channels. Cisco's 4351 model comes in a 2 RU package and includes three network interface modules, delivers as much as 400 Mbps performance, and can handle 720 Digital Voice and Video Channels. The dual power supply 4431 router has a 2 RU form factor and includes three NIMs, provides as much as 1 Gbps throughput, and allows up to 720 Digital Voice and Video Channels. The fault-tolerant 4431 model comes in a 2 RU form factor with three NIMs, provides up to 2 Gbps performance, and supports 1200 Digital Voice and Video Channels.

Cisco's WAN Edge Routers and Carrier-class Routers
Cisco's WAN edge and carrier routers can provide enterprises with high-performance, protected headends to aggregate satellite office and off-site data packets and to offer service providers cost-optimized WAN edge routing. Cisco's WAN aggregation and carrier router product line includes the Cisco ASR 1000 routers and the 9000 Series Aggregation Services routers.

Progent's nationwide team of CCIE certified network engineers have extensive experience helping enterprises and ISPs to design efficient deployments and smooth expansion of Cisco's WAN edge routers. Progent's GIAC-certified information assurance experts offer unbiased, third-party network security vulnerability assessments, penetration services and comprehensive Security information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions to help companies that use Cisco's Aggregation Services Routers to meet business guidelines and statutory regulations for network data security and reporting.

Cisco ASR 1000 Aggregation Services Routers
Cisco's ASR 1000 Series WAN Edge line of routers is positioned in the middle of Cisco's midrange products that concentrate on acting as headends at the wide area network edge. ASR 1000 routers provide a small form factor, single-product answer for enterprises who need satellite office aggregation at supergigabit Ethernet performance. ASR 1000 Series routers introduce a revolutionary architecture that mixes hardware acceleration with software flexibility in order to offer a rich set of concurrent services while preserving dependable responsiveness.

ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services routers include Cisco's new QuantumFlow Processor made up of 40 custom Packet Processing Engines that in combination can handle as many as 160 concurrent threads. This massive parallelism, in conjunction with on-board acceleration for all services, enables the high-end ASR 1006 WAN Edge router to expand up to 000 hardware queues, 32K clients, 4,000 IPsec tunnels at 10K sessions/second, and 2M Netflow records. This processing power permits ASR 1000 Series WAN Edge routers to support a wide variety of sophisticated services concurrently in massive volume while avoiding performance degradation that might violate compliance with service level agreements. These advanced services include Cisco IOS Firewall, intrusion-detection services, Network Address Translation, FPM, and in-line deep packet inspection. The ASR 1000 also permits sophisticated traffic management for applying numerous levels of QoS to a data packet in one pass, improving the user experience for next-generation voice, video, and conferencing applications.

Cisco ASR 9000 Series Routers
Cisco ASR 9000 Series Routers are intended as WAN-edge routers for carriers who need to deliver world-class data, voice and video services to home, commercial, and mobile users by offering zero downtime availability, high performance, and application-aware intelligence. All platforms in the ASR 9000 portfolio of Routers run Cisco's IOS XR operating system, a self-healing, distributed OS designed for non-stop availability. Performance of the ASR 9000 line of Routers can be expanded to as high as 96 Tbps per chassis. the Cisco ASR 9000 family of Aggregation Services Routers support Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and 100 GE and have fully redundant fabric and power supply, power entry modules, plus backup switch fabric.

The ASR 9001 model is a provider-edge router that comes in a 6 RU package that delivers 120 Gbps of full-duplex fabric performance. The Cisco ASR 9001 has two bays to support adapters for 1 GE, 10 GE, and 40 GE. The base chassis has four 10 GE SFP+ ports and ports for Stratum 1 clocking, building integrated timing supply, and management. The ASR 9904 Router has a 6 RU chassis and offers line-rate 10 GE and 100 GE connections in space-constrained sites. The 4-slot router can scale up to 4 Tbps of capacity in a single chassis. The ASR 9912 Router comes in a 30 RU chassis with 12 slots slots that can support 550 Gbps of throughput. The ASR 9912 Router has 2 route processors as well as 6+1 Fabric Cards to provide N+1 redundancy.

How Progent Can Assist Your Company to Support Cisco Routers
Progent's CCIE and CCNP certified engineers can help you to design, configure, and support a converged business network that can streamline operations, reduce expenses, and speed the path to positive return on investment. By combining Cisco routers with Catalyst switches expertise and Catalyst and Meraki Wi-Fi wireless expertise, Progent can dramatically enhance the business value of your information network. Progent offers on-premises and remote support and offers data center support throughout the U.S.

To learn more information about Progent's consulting help for Cisco solutions, pick a topic:

• Overview of Cisco Engineering Services
• Fast and Affordable Online Support from a Cisco CCIE Network Engineer
• Cisco Firepower Firewalls: Configuration and Management Expertise
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Series Firewall with Cisco Firepower Services: Consulting and Management Services
• Cisco ASA 5500 Firewalls Management Support
• Cisco PIX Series Firewall Maintenance Expertise
• Cisco Wireless Network Design Help
• Aironet Wireless APs Deployment Expertise
• Cisco Small Business 100, 300 and 500 Wireless Access Points Engineering Help
• Cisco Catalyst 802.11ax Wireless APs Solution Design, Deployment and Debugging Expertise
• Cisco WiFi Controllers Experts
• Meraki APs Consulting Support
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Integration and Troubleshooting
• Cisco VoIP Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Consulting Services and Cisco Wireless VoIP Phone Solutions
• Cisco Jabber and Management Expertise
• Catalyst Switches Deployment Expertise
• Cisco Nexus Switches Deployment Expertise
• Meraki MS Switches Consulting and Support Expertise
• Cisco VPN and Security Engineering Support
• SIP and CUBE Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Expertise
• Design Expertise for Cisco-powered Datacenters and Colocation Centers
• Network Optimization Services for Service Providers
• Streamlined Network Management Strategies for Cisco-based Infrastructure