As technology advances, the difference between routers and switches is becoming less clear. At heart, routers are Layer 3 products designed to connect different networks. A common example is connecting a small business Ethernet network to the Internet via DSL. Switches are instead Layer 2 (L2) devices that interface various devices that share the same network. Basically, routers depend on processors to move traffic based on sophisticated algorithms, offering versatility at the cost of speed. Switches, by comparison, depend on largely fixed hardware designs to steer data at the fastest feasible rate. Today's routers usually include L2 switches, and many of today’s switches include L3 routing functionality. Routers developed by Cisco, the supplier of the vast majority of the world's routers, have advanced significantly in capability and performance and Cisco makes an extensive portfolio that features routers built to meet the needs of users from individual telecommuters to the world's largest ISPs.
The latest ISR routers released by Cisco have the speed and built-in features to manage IP voice and video plus virtualization while at the same time providing high availability, web-based management, seamless scalability, and advanced security and compliance. These routers enable your company to establish a solid basis for an information network that can evolve smoothly as you hire more employees, establish extra sites, activate additional capabilities, extend your system to clients and vendors, and support an expanding mobile workforce. Progent’s Cisco qualified CCIE network consultants can provide fast and economical remote expertise to assist you to plan, deploy, manage, upgrade, and troubleshoot Cisco's most advanced routers and can assist you to support your legacy routers or move efficiently to Cisco’s current networking products.
Cisco Routers Designed for Small Companies and Branch Offices
Cisco’s routers for small companies and remote offices offer affordable and reliable no-frills alternatives that allow small groups of users to have secure connectivity to the Internet. All these single-configuration desktop devices include at minimum four switched Ethernet with Wi-Fi options plus built-in firewall to provide advanced security. Designed for simple installation, management, and support, Cisco’s small business routers reduce TCO by cutting acquisition and maintenance expenses. Progent’s remote support specialists have in-depth experience delivering fast and economical technical assistance for small organizations to configure and maintain these devices, and Progent’s CCIE network engineers can help your company to understand ways these routers can add to the strategic value of your information network.
Cisco Small Business RV Series VPN Routers
Cisco's affordably priced RV Series VPN Routers are engineered to offer small organizations with VPN technology that permits remote users to access a network via secure tunneling. Models in the Cisco RV Series Routers can handle from five to 100 VPN tunnels, incorporate 4-, 8-, or 16-port Ethernet switches, come with built-in firewalls with sophisticated data encryption, and support browser-based setup for easy set up and management. All models accommodate fast Ethernet and some models can handle Gigabit Ethernet. Wireless versions are available. These VPN routers do not incorporate Cisco’s IOS platform.
Cisco’s RV041 model Dual WAN VPN Router features a 4-port 10/100 Ethernet switch and can safely handle up to 50 remote offices or online users through Internet Protocol Security or Point-to-Point VPN tunneling. The RV042G can handle Gigabit Ethernet. The Cisco RV082 model Dual WAN VPN Router has an 8-port 10/100 switch and can support up to 100 branch offices or online users via full IPsec VPN tunneling. Cisco's RV016 Multi WAN VPN Router model includes 16 10/100 Ethernet ports, supports 100 remote connections, and allows up to seven ports to be configured for traffic load balancing or for ISP backup to ensure zero downtime Internet access.
Cisco's newer products in the expanding selection of Small Business RV Series Routers include the Cisco RV120W wired/Wireless-N Firewall with a 4-port Ethernet switch and support for as many as 10 VPN tunnels, the Cisco RV180W Wireless-N VPN Router/Access Point with a 4-port Gigabit Ethernet switch and support for 800 Mbps throughput and 10 VPN connections, Cisco's ultra-affordable RV215W Wireless Router with a 4-port switch and a USB port to enable 3G/4G WAN connectivity, and the Cisco 325 RV325 WAN VPN Router that includes a built-in a 14-port Gigabit switch and Dual Gigabit WAN ports for business continuity plus USB ports attaching 3G and 4G modems for broadband failover.
Cisco 800 Line of ISR Routers
Cisco's extensive line of 800 Series ISR routers consists of desktop, fanless devices designed and priced for small organizations, branch locations, retail shops, telecommuters, and customers of ISPs. A wealth of models in Cisco's 800 product line have been released with various options over the course of many years. The 881 Series of ISR routers suggests the wide selection of options available within the Cisco 800 product family. Various models in Cisco's 881 router portfolio can enable converged media networks by providing IP voice and video, Wi-Fi and cellular wireless and data in a single integrated appliance. Advanced security can include encryption, VPN tunneling, firewall, and URL filtering. For business continuity, available features for Cisco 881 routers include redundant WAN links or support for wired broadband WAN links such as DSL as well as multiple 3G and 4G wireless connections all built into one desktop appliance.
The basic Cisco 881 router has a 4-port 10/100-Mbps managed switch that delivers 15 Mbps throughput, the ability to handle up to 20 users, 2-port integrated Power over Ethernet, and IPv6 support. The Cisco 881W router supports 802.11g/n Wi-Fi. Cisco's 881 SRST router includes 4 FXS ports and 1 FXO port for PSTN fallback with Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony. With a Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE) license, the Cisco 881 ISR router supports SIP trunking as a replacement for legacy PRI lines or foreign exchange-office (FXO) voice connectivity to a PSTN carrier. CUBE-based SIP trunks also connect offsite agents in Cisco Call Center deployments.
Cisco Integrated Services G2 Routers
Cisco's ISR G2 routers are designed to offer satellite offices of enterprises with enhanced video and voice applications, virtual networking, protection, and dependable connectivity. Integrated Services Generation 2 routers introduce a design that preserves prior investments in service modules for older Integrated Services Routers and reduces future costs by allowing easy upgrades to additional modules when they become available. Compared to previous Integrated Services Routers, Cisco's Integrated Services Generation 2 routers offer 2-7 times more throughput, far greater expandability, and more affordable maintenance. All Cisco Integrated Services Generation 2 routers offer GE switching and incorporate multi-core processors and multigigabit fabric for higher throughput. Integrated Services G2 routers also support intelligent power control for improved energy conservation.
A notable advance with ISR G2 routers is the IOS Universal image which includes all of the Cisco IOS feature sets so that you can quickly license and activate new functions as desired without having to download and transfer a different IOS image to yourCisco router. Progent's group of Cisco-certified CCIE network engineers offer world-class expertise to assist your business to design, configure, and maintain multi-site deployments of Cisco Integrated Services Generation 2 routers that enhance satellite office efficiency and reduce the price of expansion and maintenance.
Cisco 1900 Series ISR G2 Routers
1900 Integrated Services G2 routers offer on-board encryption, optional Cisco IOS firewall, Cisco IOS intrusion prevention, and as many as 11 modular LAN switches. The 1941W ISR router provides an integrated WiFi access point that enables wireless access to high throughput data, voice, and video through Multi-Input, Multiple-output support that improves the range of current 802.11 users. Connectivity alternatives for the 1900 ISR G2 routers include T1/E1, ADSL/SDSL, 3G, and Gigabit Ethernet.
In comparison to the previous 1841 ISR router which they are able to replace, the 1900 Series Integrated Services G2 routers include 256 MB vs. 32 MB of flash memory as a default, and flash can be expanded to 4GB instead of 128 megabytes. Standard dynamic RAM size is 256 megabytes vs. 128 and top DRAM capacity is 2.25 gigabytes compared to 384 MB. In contrast to the 1841 router, the Cisco 1941 and 1941W Integrated Services G2 routers feature a USB console in place of the older DB-9 interface and includes a slot for the recently introduced Internal Services Module rather than a slot for the older and lower performance AIM module. In contrast to higher end ISR G2 routers, the 1941 Series ISR G2 routers do not allow redundant power or add-in slots for PVDM modules.
2900 Series ISR G2 Routers
2900 Series ISR G2 Routers are released in four models which correspond to the models in Cisco’s successful 2800 router series. Cisco’s 2900 Integrated Services G2 routers offer on-board hardware encryption, voice and video ready Digital Signal Processor slots, optional firewall, Cisco IOS intrusion prevention, voice mail, and from 16 to 50 LAN switchports. The integrated encryption hardware supports IPsec and SSL VPN for protected off-site access and is significantly faster than the Advanced Integration Modules available with 2800 series routers. The high-end 2951 Series ISR G2 router can handle 600 SIP sessions. Wired and wireless connectivity alternatives include T1/E1, T3/E3, xDSL, as well as GbE.
2911, 2921, and 2951 ISR G2 routers accommodate the Cisco Enhanced EtherSwitch Service Modules, offering high-throughput capability identical to the Catalyst 2960 and Catalyst 3650-E Series Switches. Compared to the older Cisco 2821 Integrated Services router that the 2921 ISR G2 router is designed to substitute for, the 2921 is offered by default with 256 MB as opposed to 64 MB of flash storage and can be expanded to 4 gigabytes compared to 256 MB. Standard DRAM capacity is 512 megabytes vs. 256 and maximum DRAM capacity is 2.5 GB compared to 1 GB.
3900 Series ISR G2 Routers
Cisco has released four platforms for the high-end 3900 Series Integrated Services G2 router, the 3925, 3945, 3925E, and 3945E. These devices offer the highest throughput and add-in slot densities in Cisco’s ISR Generation 2 product line and support high-speed DSPs for the most resource-intensive voice/video environments, fast integrated encryption, a wide range of interface options, up to 98 modular LAN Switchports, and as many as 2,500 Session Initiation Protocol sessions. To preserve your IT investment, the Cisco 3900 Series ISR G2 routers support the Cisco Services Performance Engine (SPE), a versatile motherboard that can be swapped out in the field to improve processing power without requiring your business to purchase another router. Like other Cisco ISR G2 routers, the 3900 family also protects past investments by supporting most of the add-in modules from first-generation Cisco Integrated Services Routers. For advanced fault tolerance, 3900 Series ISR G2 support dual power supplies.
In comparison to the previous 3825 ISR router which the 2921 ISR G2 router is designed to substitute for, the Cisco 3925 is shipped by default with 256 megabytes as opposed to 64 MB of flash memory and can be loaded with up to 4GB compared to 256 MB. Default DRAM size is 1 gigabyte vs. 256 megabytes and maximum DRAM capacity is 4 gigabytes compared to only 1.
Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers
The Cisco 4000 Line of Integrated Services Routers (ISRs) are modular and expandable routers intended for organizations with a large number of branch offices and offsite workers requiring direct access to in-house data centers as well as public clouds across VPNs and the Internet. The 4000 series provides the throughput needed for hybrid WAN environments to support mobile workers, Cloud-based services, and HD video applications by using wide area network optimization, deep packet inspection, and advanced traffic-management technology. Models in Cisco's ISR 4000 family run Cisco's powerful IOS XE software, come in a 1RU or 2RU package, can handle as much as 2 Gbps of traffic, and can include up to 3 interface module slots, 2 service module slots, 4 built-in 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, and 8 CPU core integrated server modules. Cisco ISR 4000 models support integrated Gigabit Ethernet, T1/E1, T3/E3, PR1, xDSL and other interfaces. To manage unified communications, the 400o ISR offers extensive edge support technology for policy-enhanced session border control, branch telephony fault tolerance, and TDM gateways.
The major difference between Cisco's 4400 and 4300 Series Routers is redundant power supply capability in the 4400 Series, providing a higher level of availability. The 4321 ISR Router comes in a 1 RU desktop package and includes two network interface modules, delivers up to 100 Mbps performance, and allows up to 240 Digital Voice/Video Channels. The 4331 model comes in a 1 RU package with two NIMs, offers up to 300 Mbps throughput, and can handle 360 Digital Voice and Video Channels. Cisco's 4351 Integrated Services Router has a 2 RU form factor with three NIMs, provides up to 400 Mbps performance, and can handle 720 Digital Voice/Video Channels. The power-redundant 4431 model features a 2 RU package and includes three NIMs, delivers as much as 1 Gbps performance, and supports 720 Digital Voice/Video Channels. Cisco's redundant-power 4431 ISR Router comes in a 2 RU form factor and includes three network interface modules, provides up to 2 Gbps performance, and can handle 1200 Digital Voice and Video Channels.
Cisco's 1st Generation Integrated Service Routers
Cisco's first-generation Integrated Services Routers, with in excess of 6M products deployed, have become the world's most popular technology for small to medium-sized companies and enterprise satellite offices to ensure fast, safe, and dependable connectivity to strategic applications. Progent's CCIE network consultants are seasoned experts at providing online consulting, management, and troubleshooting services for Cisco 1800, 2800, and 3800 series Integrated Services Routers. Progent can assist you to upgrade to the latest version of Cisco IOS Software with minimal disruption to your network, evaluate the security vulnerability of your existing router configuration, and assist business to move economically to the new line of Cisco Integrated Services G2 routers when it makes competitive sense for your company.
Cisco 1800 Integrated Services Routers
The Cisco 1800 Series of integrated services routers embed data and protection into one robust solution for fast, expandable connectivity with vital business programs. The 1800 Series router architecture has been especially developed to satisfy the requirements of small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), small enterprise branch offices, and service provider-managed services applications for delivery of simultaneous services at wire speed. The integrated secure systems architecture of the Cisco 1800 Series routers delivers maximum versatility and investment protection.
Cisco's 1841 router provides important advantages in comparison to prior generations of Cisco 1700 Series routers by bringing more than a 5x performance improvement plus built-in hardware-based encryption enabled by an available Cisco IOS Software security image. The 1841 integrated services router significantly improves interface card slot throughput and capacity in comparison to the 1700 Series while providing support for over 30 existing Wide Area Network interface cards and multiflex trunk cards (voice/WICs-for data only). The 1841 router offers further improvement of Virtual Private Network performance with an available Virtual Private Network acceleration add-in; an intrusion prevention system (IPS) and firewall capabilities; compatibility with a broad range of connectivity requirements, including support for optional integrated switch ports; plus enough performance and expansion slot capacity for ongoing network expansion and next-generation applications.
Cisco 2800 Series Integrated Services Routers
Targeted at small to midsize businesses (SMBs) and enterprise branch offices, the Cisco 2800 Series routers consists of four platforms: the Cisco 2801, the Cisco 2811, the 2821, and the Cisco 2851. Cisco's 2800 routers offer significant added value in comparison to prior models of Cisco routers at comparable prices by delivering as much as a 5x performance increase, as much as a 10x improvement in security and voice speed, embedded service options, and dramatically increased slot speed and capacity while preserving support for most of the more than 90 popular modules in use today for the Cisco 1700, the 2600 Series, and the 3700 devices.
Cisco's 2800 Series offers a range of common security features including a Cisco IOS Software Firewall, an IPS, IP security Virtual Private Network, SSL Virtual Private Network, powerful application inspection and control, Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol Version 2.0, and Simple Network Management Protocol in a single protected solution set. Also, by incorporating security functions directly into the router itself, Cisco can enable unique intelligent security functions other security devices can't, such as NAC for antivirus defense; Voice and Video Enabled VPN for quality-of-service support when combining voice, video, and Virtual Private Networks; DMVPN; Group Encrypted Transport (GET); and Easy VPN for enabling more scalable and manageable VPN networks.
Businesses can utilize the 2800 Series router to deploy a converged IP telephony network for as many as 96 IP telephones, and can safely combine data, voice, and IP telephony on one router for their small to midsize satellite offices.
The 2800 Series supports a built-in access point for 802.11x wireless LAN access, wireless Hotspot capability for shared public wireless access, and infrastructure services for cordless wireless LAN telephony and for high-density sites.
Cisco 3800 Integrated Services Routers
3800 Series integrated services routers are engineered for small and midsize organizations and corporate satellite locations to offer companies the top degree of network versatility, speed, and functionality. The Cisco 3800 integrated services routers smoothly integrate the latest network engineering, adaptive services, and protected corporate communications into one robust platform. The Cisco 3800 Series routers ease deployment and management, lower network cost and complexity, and provide investment protection. 3800 Series integrated services routers offer embedded security intelligence, fast performance and high memory capacity, and high-capacity interfaces that provide the speed, resilience, and reliability required for building mission-critical protection, IP telephony, high-volume video, system monitoring, and web-based applications in even the most competitive enterprise environments. Engineered for speed, the Cisco 3800 Series routers provide multiple simultaneous services as fast as wired T3/E3 rates.
The integrated services routing architecture of the 3800 router is engineered to integrate protection and voice handling with the latest wired and wireless support for fast deployment of new applications, including application layer operations, intelligent network services, and unified communications. The 3800 integrated services router supports the bandwidth requirements for multiple 100Mbps ports for every expansion slot, TDM connections, and integrated power sourcing to modules supporting 802.3af Power over Ethernet, while also accommodating the existing portfolio of interfaces. This ensures ongoing return on investment by allowing network expansion or adapting to changes in technology as the latest services are deployed. By integrating the capabilities of multiple separate appliances into one compact device, the 3800 Series router significantly lowers the expense and hassle of managing remote networks.
Cisco's Midrange WAN Edge Routers and Carrier-class Routers
Cisco’s midrange WAN edge and carrier routers can provide larger businesses with fast, protected distribution points to aggregate branch office and off-site data packets and to offer carriers economical WAN edge routing. Cisco’s WAN aggregation and service provider router product line features the Cisco 7600 Series, the ASR 1000 ASR product line, the ASR 9000 ASR family, and the Cisco Carrier Routing System.
Progent's nationwide team of CCIE network experts have extensive experience helping enterprise businesses and service providers to design efficient installations and seamless upgrades of Cisco's midrange and carrier-class routers. Progent's GIAC-certified information assurance experts offer unbiased, independent security inventory assessments, penetration testing and comprehensive SIEM solutions to help companies that use Cisco's WAN aggregation routers to meet industry standards and statutory mandates for network data protection and reporting.
Cisco 7600 Series Integrated Services Routers
The 7600 Integrated Services router takes advantage of the Catalyst 6500 infrastructure by using an NEBS-3 compliant box, 256-Gbps crossbar switch fabric, and 30-Mpps switching performance. High availability is implemented via logic and hardware redundancy plus IOS Software capabilities. In addition, the 7600 provides a broad set of high-touch IP network services at optical rates via a variety of OSMs powered by Cisco patented Parallel Express Forwarding technology.
The Cisco 7609 Series offers the option to use a 256-Gbps SFM or the standard 32-Gbps data bus, providing performance of 30 or 15 Mpps each. When the SFM is used, the Cisco 7609 Series can in addition allow distributed switching with throughput up to 168 million packets per second by using the Catalyst 6500 16-port Gigabit Ethernet card, which is controlled by the Distributed Forwarding Card (DFC) and the Switch Fabric Module.
The 7603 Series router has only the 32-Gbps data bus option and provides 15 million packets per second centralized switching performance. The Cisco 7603 Series does not support distributed switching.
Cisco ASR 1000 Series WAN Edge Routers
Cisco’s ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services family of routers is designed to fill the middle of Cisco’s midrange products that concentrate on aggregating services at the wide area network edge. ASR 1000 WAN Edge routers provide a small form factor, multi-function solution for enterprises looking for satellite office aggregation at multigigabit Ethernet speeds. ASR 1000 Series WAN Edge routers incorporate a revolutionary architecture that mixes hardware acceleration with software flexibility to deliver a rich set of simultaneous services while preserving consistent responsiveness.
Cisco’s ASR 1000 routers feature Cisco’s new QuantumFlow Processor incorporating 40 custom Packet Processing Engines that together can support up to 160 concurrent processor threads. This massive parallelism, in conjunction with on-board acceleration for all services, enables the high-end ASR 1006 Aggregation Services router to scale up to 128 queues, 32K clients, 4K IP security tunnels at 10K sessions/second, and 2 million Netflow log records. This CPU capability permits ASR 1000 routers to support a broad range of sophisticated services simultaneously in massive volume without suffering throughput decay that might threaten adherence to service level agreements. Examples of these services include Cisco IOS Firewall, IPS, Network Address Translation, FPM, and in-line deep packet inspection. The Cisco ASR 1000 also permits tiered traffic management for performing numerous levels of Quality of Service to a data packet in one pass, improving responsiveness for next-generation IP voice and video applications.
Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers
Cisco's ASR 9000 Series Routers are intended as edge routers for service providers who are required to deliver the highest quality HD multimedia services to home, business, and mobile users by providing always-on operation, high performance, and application-aware intelligence. All models in the ASR 9000 portfolio of Routers run Cisco's IOS XR operating system, a self-healing, distributed OS designed for continuous uptime. Performance of the ASR 9000 line of Aggregation Services Routers can scale up to 96 Tbps per system. the Cisco ASR 9000 family of Routers can handle high-density Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and 100 GE and feature redundant fabric and power modules, power entry modules, and fan trays plus backup control planes and switch fabric.
The Cisco ASR 9001 platform is a provider-edge router that comes in a 6 RU package with 120 Gbps of nonblocking fabric capacity. The ASR 9001 has two bays which can support adapters for 1 Gigabit, 10 Gigabit, and 40 Gigabit Ethernet. The chassis incorporates four 10 Gbit Ethernet enhanced Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP+) ports and ports for Stratum 1 clocking, building integrated timing supply (BITS), and management. The ASR 9904 Router comes in a 6 RU form factor and provides line-rate 10 GE and 100 GE connectivity in space-limited sites. The 4-slot router can scale up to 4 Tbps of switching capacity in a single chassis. The Cisco ASR 9912 Router comes in a 30 RU chassis with 12 slots slots able to support 550 Gbps of switching capacity. The ASR 9912 has 2 route processors as well as 6+1 Fabric Cards to provide N+1 redundancy.
The Cisco CRS Carrier Routing System
Cisco's Carrier Routing System product line, powered by Cisco's IOS XR high-availability operating system, gives carriers world-class capacity and availability. The Carrier Routing System product line was introduced in 2004, has been steadily improved, and now features the world's most widely deployed multichassis network core router. To protect past investments in infrastructure, the latest CRS models are backward compatible with previous products.
Available product lines in the CRS family are the CRS-1, CRS-3, and CRS-X Series Routers. Each CRS series includes single-shelf 4-slot, 8-slot, and 16-slot systems as well as multi-chassis models. The CRS-1 Series is based on Cisco's Silicon Packet Processor and delivers as much as 92 Tbps of performance. Products in the CRS-3 Series use QuantumFlow Array technology and can provide as much as 322 Tbps performance. Cisco's CRS-X Series Routers incorporate Cisco's CMOS photonics CPAK technology and scale to deliver up to 922 Tbps.
Cisco's CRS Multichassis models can expand from 2 to 72 line-card shelves with the capability to provide 400-Gbps of continuous performance for each slot. CRS Multichassis platforms can accommodate 1 to 8 fabric shelves. MSCs and physical layer interface modules can be used throughout the entire Cisco CRS family.
Older Cisco Routers Supported by Progent's Experts
Progent's CCIE engineers are experienced with legacy routers no longer offered by Cisco. Progent can show you how to maintain these routers and can in addition help you to rationalize and implement upgrades to newer models. Popular Cisco routers supported by Progent include:
Cisco's discontinued 870 Series routers are targeted for small networks with as many as 20 users or for telecommuter locations where advanced VoIP and video and reliable access using standby WAN connections are needed. Cisco 870 Series routers deliver high performance for small workgroups as well as enhanced security through features such as Firewall, IPsec VPN, 3DES or AES plus Dynamic Multipoint VPN and Tunnel-less Group Encrypted Transport, IPS, virus defense using Network Admission Control (NAC), and policing of secure connection policies.
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