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Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000)

Score9 out of 10

168 Reviews and Ratings

What is Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000)?

Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) provides a scalable, flexible foundation so you can quickly integrate leading IT initiatives like SD-WAN and edge compute, while meeting the explosive network performance need driven by cloud-based application adoption.

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Categories & Use Cases

Who Buys & Uses Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000)

Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) Reviews

What users are saying about Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000).
View all Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) reviews

Great product

Incentivized
Daniel Iniguez
Network engineer in Information Technology at PPG (10,001+ employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers for 2 purposes.
First, we use them to serve as gateway router for our sites, configuring VPNs for internal resources connectivity and static routes towards specific destinations.
Second, we use them as voice gateways at some locations. Depending on the needs, we might use smaller ISR models, but we have Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers also in place.

Pros

  • Routing
  • VPN
  • Voice services

Cons

  • GUI

Return on Investment

  • Good ROI.
  • Reduce downtime thanks to redundant gateway protocols.
  • Reduce downtime thanks to uplink failover configurations.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Cisco 1000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 1000) and Cisco Meraki MX

Other Software Used

Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, Cisco Meraki MX, Cisco 1000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 1000)

Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000) Review

Incentivized
KAGNROATH Uk
Head of Technical Enterprise in Information Technology at Positron Multiverse Co., LTD (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SWe use this product in my organization like we do OSPF routing between office location and we do BGP routing to pair between ISP.

Pros

  • It's working well in routing as long as we know the performance, we know the neighbor, we know how many routing table we need to do. It's working well. We don't have to touch anything. Yes, it stays there. If we don't do anything, it stays there for so long.

Cons

  • Actually it's good already, but sometimes users ask me why this product doesn't have an interface that other products have. But in term of technical, they don't care. They're just doing command line, and yes it's working well, but if they come both for interface and command line in the sandbox, don't need to integrate with other appliance

Most Important Features

  • Actually for this product we are not using it so much because we have FTD layer. That's why we don't try to put multiple layers in it. But I saw it working really great. Provides internal security capability. But sometime we need to think and spread the workload between the product so we can optimize its performance

Return on Investment

  • It is a positive impact for our investment to use the Cisco router because we find out that it is cost effective if we compare to other products. In term of routing, and the specific job that it's used to do.

Other Software Used

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers product review

Incentivized
Mahesh Doshi
IT in Information Technology at Trafigura (5001-10,000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers is extremely versatile and enterprise class device supporting varied models depending on business requirements. It is based on IOS XE, which support various API and integrated with various monitoring systems. It support netflow based monitoring for all class of systems. Build in network capabilities address the growing requirement for application aware in distributed environment. Various models support various backbone speeds for enterprise networks. Available in 2U sleek models requires minimal power consumption compared to its predecessors 3900 series routers. It can be used for converged branch networks as it can run multiple services including encryption, monitoring traffic management and WAN optimization. It supports enterprise licensing model, which makes is future ready. It also supports SDWAN, DNAC which makes it easy to provision, manage, monitor and troubleshoot. The pricing model is flexible, which allows it to increase the backbone bandwidth as per our requirement, so we pay as you grow.

Pros

  • Pay as you grow - Increase the backbone bandwidth as per your enterprise requirement. So single box can support multiple variants of offices.
  • Space consolidation and improved TCO - Total cost of ownership as single converged device able to support branch and enterprise platform, simple to provision, manage, maintain, troubleshoot and monitor. support encryption, UC, WAN optimization and performance management tools.
  • Business continuity and resilience - ISR models support dual integrated power supplies, with ability to support PoE power to endpoint. Modular network interface. Supports Cisco Unified survivable remote site telephony (SRST), which serves as resiliency to Cisco UC Collaboration solution.
  • Lower WAN expenses - integrated and embedded SDWAN solution for enabling low cost internet solutions.

Cons

  • There are different variants of licenses to boost performance. Boost and performance licenses. Perf license is cheaper than boost. And different for varying bandwidth requirements. This does create confusion at times, explaining to management. This is a room to simplify here.
  • User interface GUI capable would be a great asset for this product along with command line capability.
  • Cost of devices can be made more competitive. Currently this is priced on higher side compared to 8xxx series routers.

Return on Investment

  • Can be used for ISE, Meraki access point, FTD firewall, works well, no worry about integration with any third party product. As this device can be multipurpose, ROI is faster and usable for longer period of time, as no EOL any time soon
  • This is an integrated modular device so even if my small offices are closed over a period of time, this can be re-purposed for other requirements within organization
  • This device supports WAN optimization within software. This reduces the requirement of that specific optimization device, which reduces my overall cost for a branch network

Alternatives Considered

Cisco 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 1000), Juniper MX Series and Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)

Other Software Used

Cisco Nexus Dashboard, ThousandEyes, CSI Secure Connect

Cisco Review

Incentivized
Anthony Jorgensen
Network Operations Manager in Information Technology at AAA (1001-5000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It takes care of providing the WAN connections for our network. So it's the WAN connectivity.

Pros

  • One of the things I like is because I'm in operations, I deal with software upgrades. So some of the other products take a while after you reboot them or upgrade them to come back up. What I like about these ISRs, is that they reboot really quickly, come up, and are back providing that connectivity quickly. So our downtime is minimal, which I appreciate.

Cons

  • I was just trying to think of any room for improvement. It's hard. It does a lot. It does what we need. It does the operations, I can't think of anything for improvement actually

Most Important Features

  • N/A

Return on Investment

  • N/A

Good router, although the addons can get very expensive.

Incentivized
Kirk ReidView profile
Network Architect in Information Technology at TC Energy Corporation (5001-10,000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use these to enable communications from field sites on the corporate network via Internet, Cell, Satellite, MPLS.

Pros

  • These are great for IKE V2 VPNs with serial console access

Cons

  • The upgradability of the routers is great, but very expensive
  • The need for increased memory/flash for current features

Most Important Features

  • Manageability
  • Common feature and command sets with other devices in the environment

Return on Investment

  • There was a recall due to issues with the hardware clock. This was very costly to replace
  • We have had some issues with the backplane of one of the models, but the other devices have been very solid.

Other Software Used

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series, Sierra Wireless AirLink Cellular Routers and Gateways