The current generation of routers typically come with L2 switching capability, and many of today's switches include Layer 3 routing functionality. Routers offered by Cisco, the source of 90% of the industry's routers, have improved significantly in function and performance and Cisco now makes an extensive product line that includes routers engineered to meet the requirements of customers ranging from households to nationwide service providers.

The most recent ISR routers released by Cisco offer the speed and integrated features to manage data voice and video plus virtual environments while also offering high availability, web-based administration, easy scalability, and advanced protection. These routers enable you to build a firm foundation for an IT environment that can grow seamlessly as you add more workers, open extra sites, configure new functions, give access to your network to clients and partners, and build an expanding mobile user base. Progent's Cisco certified CCIE network consultants can provide fast and affordable remote expertise to help you to plan, configure, manage, update, and troubleshoot Cisco's most advanced routers and can assist you to maintain your legacy routers or move efficiently to Cisco's newer networking solutions.
Cisco Routers Designed for Home and Small Offices and Branch Offices
Cisco's routers for small companies and remote offices provide low-cost and reliable entry-level alternatives that allow small sets of workers to have safe connectivity to the Internet. All these single-configuration desktop routers include at least four 10/100 Ethernet ports with Wi-Fi options plus built-in firewall to provide enhanced security. Built for simple setup, management, and support, Cisco's entry-level routers minimize TCO by lowering acquisition and operational expenses. Progent's online troubleshooting experts have in-depth experience delivering fast and affordable technical assistance for small businesses to set up and support these devices, and Progent's CCIE-certified network consultants can help your company to understand how Cisco's entry-level routers can increase the business value of your information system.
Cisco ISR 900 Series Routers
Cisco's ISR 900 Series desktop routers are small-footprint, quiet, set-configuration devices intended for small to medium-sized businesses, branch offices, and home offices. These value-priced routers have four managed GE switch ports and can support Metro Ethernet, LTE, and DSL WAN connections. Cisco's ISR 900 router family delivers triple the IPsec performance of Cisco's ISR 800 Series family of routers. All ISR 900 Series routers offer Group Encrypted Transport VPN, dynamic multipoint virtual private network VPN, FlexVPN, and firewall. VPN performance is up to 250 Mbps. All versions support up to 50 VLANs. Supported dynamic failover protocols for business continuity include Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol, Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), and Multigroup HSRP (MHSRP). Setup and management can be done with Cisco CP Express, Cisco DNA Center, and Cisco IOS Software. ISR 900 Series routers do not support Cisco SD-WAN.
The Cisco ISR 921 router features dual GE WAN, Category 4 LTE, and an internal power supply. VPN throughput is 150 Mbps. Cisco's ISR 926 and ISR 927 models use external power and feature one GE WAN interface, Category 4 LTE, VDSL2 and ADSL2/2+. VPN performance for both routers is 150 Mbps. The top-of-the-line ISR 931 supports dual GE WAN and has an internal power supply. GE WAN VPN performance is 250 Mbps.
Cisco Meraki MX Series SD-WAN Security Appliances
The Cisco Meraki MX line of desktop routers combine software-defined wide area networking and cloud-hosted unified threat management in a single small-footprint appliance able to support 50 to 200 users. Every MX router must be licensed for the Meraki cloud. For sites with several external network connections (e.g., MPLS, fiber optic, cellular), SD-WAN technology allows admins to specify the WAN interface an app should use or to build performance-based rules to determine the preferred interface. MX fixed-configuration desktop routers share key capabilities that include:
Cisco 1000 and 1100 Series ISR Enterprise Branch Routers
Cisco 1000 Series Integrated Services Routers powered by Cisco IOS XE software are a selection of fanless routers intended to deliver network service, wireless support, and advanced cybersecurity for small and midsize businesses, enterprise branch offices, retail outlets, customer premises equipment (CPE), and machine-to-machine (M2M) environments. Parallel processing cores and the ability to run Cisco IOS XE allow these routers to offer features consistent with Cisco's entire family of modern Enterprise routers. 1000 and 1100 Series ISR models are available with 4 or 8 LAN switch ports and offer Gigabit Ethernet packet forwarding. Available features include Power over Ethernet (PoE) and PoE+, auto provisioning, plus a selection of built-in or pluggable connections for LAN, WAN, wireless LAN, SHDSL, 4G LTE wireless, 802.11ac wireless, and SFP. Cisco 1000 and 1100 Series ISR routers work with Cisco's SD-WAN services for seamless multiple-cloud connectivity, multilayer cybersecurity, and unified administration across hybrid network models.

Cisco's rackmount or desktop 1100-4G ISR router includes four integrated GE ports, built-in 3G/4G LTE wireless with two LTE antenna SMA sockets, and a micro-SIM plug-in slot. Encryption performance is 200 Mbps. The Cisco ISR 1100-6G router adds two 1G SFP ports and features encryption throughput of 520 Mbps. Cisco's desktop ISR 1101-4P router includes four integrated switched GE ports, offers 802.11ac Wi-Fi as well as 3G/4G LTE, and features encryption rates of 280 Mbps. Cisco's 1109-2P/4P ISR desktop routers include two or four built-in GE connections and two pluggable 3G/4G LTE wireless ports. Encryption throughput is 200 Mbps.
The rackmount or desktop 111x-4P/8P ISR routers have four or eight integrated GE connections (two or four with Power over Ethernet) and feature VDSL2/ADSL2+, 802.11ac, 3G/4G LTE wireless, and 1G SFP. Encryption rate is 280 Mbps. Cisco's rackmount or desktop ISR 1111X-8P router includes eight built-in switched GE ports (four with POE) and a port for 1G SFP. Encryption performance is 340 Mbps. The ISR 112x-8P router has eight built-in GE connections with PoE and supports SHDSL, VDSL2/ADSL2+, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 3G/4G LTE, and SFP Fiber. Encryption rate is 340 Mbps. Cisco's 1161X-8P ISR router has eight switched GE interfaces with Power over Ethernet and supports 3G/4G LTE wireless and 1G SFP. Encryption throughput is 450 Mbps.
Cisco Catalyst 8000 Series Branch and WAN Edge Platforms for SD-WAN and Routing
Cisco's Catalyst 8000 Series routers are modular appliances intended to work at the enterprise branche and the WAN edge to support 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 provide scalability, advanced cybersecurity, and 5G access. Performance is enhanced using custom hardware, a multicore design, high port density, and line-rate encryption. Cisco's subscription software services offer ongoing access to current SD-WAN technology and allow unified management with enhanced cybersecurity, application-optimized policies, network segmentation, and cloud readiness.
Cisco Catalyst 8200 Enterprise Branch Edge Routers
Cisco Catalyst 8200 routers are successors to Cisco's 4300 Series Integrated Services Routers, offering higher IPsec performance and scale, hardware-accelerated crypto, plus greater built-in WAN port density. These 1RU routers are designed to bring Cisco's Secure Access Service Edge, Software-Defined WAN and 5G-connection technology to enterprise branches and the enterprise access edge. Cisco's Catalyst C8200L-1N-4T router includes four CPU cores, enables 500 Mbps IPsec throughput, and allows 1,500 SD-WAN tunnels. Cisco's Catalyst 8200L router does not support container-based applications. The Catalyst C8200-1N-4T model features eight CPU cores, provides 1Gb IPsec throughput, supports 2,500 SD-WAN tunnels, and allows edge computing with in-place container architectures. Both devices include one Network Interface Module (NIM) slot, one Pluggable Interface Module (PIM) slot, two 1 Gigabit Ethernet WAN ports, and two 1 Gigabit Ethernet WAN Small-Form-Factor Pluggable ports. 4-port and 8-port 1 Gigabit Ethernet switch NIM modules are available for both 8200 routers.
Cisco Catalyst 8300 Enterprise Edge Routers
Catalyst 8300 WAN Edge routers are intended to replace Cisco's 4400 line of Integrated Services Routers, delivering Cisco's secure SD-WAN solution to mid-sized and large company branches seeking high WAN IPSec throughput combined with cohesive SD-WAN services. Enhanced features include 5G wireless connectivity, integrated cybersecurity, WAN MACSec, enhanced Layer 2 switching, and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) with application-aware optimization. Cisco Catalyst 8300 Series routers enable edge computing for an in-place container architecture for Cisco UCS-E modules offered on Cisco's 4000 Series ISR appliances. All models in the Catalyst 8300 portfolio support 4,000 SD-WAN tunnels and feature backup power supplies for improved availability.
The Catalyst 8300-1N1S-6T router is a 1RU appliance that includes eight CPU cores and offers 2G SD-WAN throughput and IPsec data rates as high as 1.9Gbps. The router comes with a single SM expansion slot, one NIM slot, and six integrated 1-Gigabit Ethernet WAN interfaces. The Catalyst 8300-2N2S-6T router is a 2RU model that includes 8 CPU cores and delivers 2G SD-WAN throughput and IPsec performance as high as 1.9Gbps. The model includes two SM plug-in slots, two NIM slots, and six integrated 1G Ethernet WAN ports. The Catalyst C8300-1N1S-4T2X router model is a one-rack unit device that includes 8 CPU cores and supports 5G SD-WAN data rates and IPsec data rates up to 15Gbps. The appliance has one one Service Module expansion slot, a NIM slot, two integrated 10-Gigabit Ethernet WAN interfaces, and four fixed 1G Ethernet WAN ports. The Catalyst C8300-2N2S-4T2X router is a two-rack unit device that includes 12 CPU cores and offers 5G SD-WAN throughput and IPsec performance as high as 18Gbps. The router has two SM plug-in slots, two NIM slots, two integrated 10-Gigabit Ethernet WAN ports, and four built-in 1-Gigabit Ethernet WAN interfaces. LAN modules modules offered by Cisco range from a four-port 1G Ethernet switch Network Interface Module module to a 50-port Catalyst L2 switch Service Module.
Catalyst 8500 Series Aggregation Edge Routers
The Catalyst 8500 Series Aggregation Edge routers are fixed, 1RU aggregation devices for SD-WAN and colocation environments. Built-in features include route processor, embedded services processor (ESP), plus aggregation hardware for various connection choices. IPsec performance is twice that of Cisco's prior generation ASR1001-X router. Available connectivity alternatives include 1GE, 10GE, 40GE, and 100GE WAN ports. The routers include dual AC or DC power units for enhanced resilience. Software subscription packages provide continuing use of Cisco DNA Center Software for SD-WAN and routing and enable unified management of security, application-aware policies, network segmentation, and cloud connectivity optimization.
The Cisco Catalyst C8500L-8S4X Aggregation Edge router is designed to offer a similar key features as Cisco's ASR 1000 appliance. The C8500L-8S4X has four 1/10GE WAN ports and supports as high as 20 Gbps Cisco Express Forwarding aggregate performance. SD-WAN IPsec throughput can reach 19Gbps. The Catalyst C8500-12X appliance includes 12 integrated 1/10GE WAN interfaces and delivers as high as 120 Gbps aggregate data rates. SD-WAN IPsec throughput is up to 51 Gbps. The C8500-12X4QC aggregation router comes with four built-in 1/10GE WAN interfaces and eight 1G ports and can support up to 200 Gbps aggregate performance. SD-WAN IPsec performance can reach 68 Gbps. Cisco's C8500-20X6C router includes 20 integrated SFP+ ports and 6 x QSFP+ interfaces. The C8500-20X6C supports up to 500 Gbps Cisco Express Forwarding aggregate throughput.
Cisco Integrated Services Generation 2 Routers
Cisco's Integrated Services G2 routers are designed to offer satellite offices of large businesses with enhanced collaboration, virtual networking, security, and dependable WAN access. ISR Generation 2 routers feature an architecture that preserves past investments in modules for first-generation Integrated Services Routers and lowers future expenses by permitting field upgrades to new modules when they become available. In comparison to older ISR routers, Cisco's ISR G2 routers offer 2-7 times higher throughput, far more, and easier maintenance. All Integrated Services Generation 2 routers support GE switching and incorporate multi-core CPUs and multigigabit fabric for faster performance. ISR Generation 2 routers also offer intelligent power control for better energy efficiency.
A notable advance with ISR G2 routers is the IOS Universal image which contains all of the Cisco IOS feature sets so that you can quickly license and activate new features when required without having to download and copy a new IOS image to yourrouter. Progent's team of Cisco-certified CCIE network consultants can provide world-class expertise to assist your business to plan, implement, and support multi-site installations of Cisco ISR Generation 2 routers that enhance branch office productivity and cut the price of upgrades and support.
Cisco's ISR 800 Line of Routers
Cisco's 800 Series of ISR routers has been superseded by the higher performance Cisco ISR 900 family but remains widely used. Cisco's comprehensive portfolio of 800 Series ISR routers consists of desktop devices designed and priced for small businesses, branch offices, retail venues, telecommuters, and clients of ISPs. Many devices in Cisco's 800 Series family of routers have been released with many options over many years. The 881 Series of ISR routers exemplifies the wide array of options offered within the Cisco 800 product family. Various models in Cisco's 881 router portfolio can support unified media networks by providing IP voice and video, wireless and data in a single integrated appliance. Built-in data protection can include encryption, VPN tunneling, firewall, and URL filtering. For survivability, available options for Cisco 881 routers include redundant wide area network connections or support for landline broadband WAN connections such as DSL plus multiple different cellular 3G and 4G wireless connections all on one appliance.

The basic Cisco 881 router features a 4-port fast Ethernet 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 features four FXS ports and 1 FXO port for public-switched-telephone-network (PSTN) fallback with Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony. With a Cisco CUBE license, Cisco's 881 ISR router supports SIP trunk connectivity to replace outdated Primary Rate Interface (PRI) lines or FXO voice connectivity to a PSTN service provider. CUBE-based SIP trunks also connect remote agents in Cisco Call Center deployments.
Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers
Cisco's 4000 Series ISR Routers are compact modular and expandable platforms intended for businesses with a large number of branch offices and remote users who need direct communication with in-house data centers as well as public clouds via VPNs and the Internet. Cisco's 4000 series provides the bandwidth required for hybrid WAN environments to accommodate mobile users, cloud services, and HD multimedia applications by using wide area network optimization, deep packet inspection, and traffic-management techniques. Devices in the 4000 Series run Cisco's IOS XE operating system, come in a 1-rack-unit (RU) or 2RU package, can support as much as 2 Gbps of traffic, and can have up to 3 interface module 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 handle unified communications, Cisco's 400o ISR provides extensive edge support technology for policy-enhanced SBC, telephony fault tolerance, and TDM gateways.

The primary difference between the Cisco 4400 and 4300 Series is redundant power supply support in the 4400 ISR Series, providing a greater degree of availability. The 4321 ISR Router comes in a 1 RU desktop form factor and includes two network interface modules (NIMs), provides as much as 100 Mbps performance, and supports 240 Digital Voice and Video Channels. Cisco's 4331 ISR Router comes in a 1 RU form factor and includes two NIMs, provides up to 300 Mbps throughput, and can handle 360 Digital Voice/Video Channels. The 4351 ISR Router has a 2 RU form factor and includes three NIMs, delivers up to 400 Mbps throughput, and allows up to 720 Digital Voice and Video Channels. Cisco's dual power supply 4431 model features a 2 RU package and includes three NIMs, offers as much as 1 Gbps throughput, and supports 720 Digital Voice/Video Channels. The fault-tolerant 4431 Integrated Services Router features a 2 RU form factor and includes three NIMs, delivers as much as 2 Gbps performance, and allows up to 1200 Digital Voice/Video Channels.
Cisco's Midrange WAN Aggregation Routers and Carrier-class Routers
Cisco's midrange and carrier routers offer larger businesses with fast, secure head ends to aggregate branch office and remote user data packets and to offer service providers cost-effective WAN edge solutions. Cisco's WAN aggregation and carrier router portfolio includes the ASR 1000 routers and the 9000 Series Aggregation Services family.

Progent's national group of CCIE certified network experts have extensive experience working with enterprises and service providers to plan efficient installations and seamless expansion of Cisco's midrange and carrier-class routers. Progent's GIAC-certified information assurance experts offer unbiased, independent security vulnerability evaluations, penetration testing and advanced SIEM solutions to help companies that use Cisco's WAN aggregation routers to meet business standards and government mandates for IT data security and reporting. Progent also can provide help with Horizon3.ai's NodeZero platform for penetration testing. NodeZero depends on AI technology to streamline the threat evaluation cycle of finding security gaps in network perimeters and within the internal network infrastructure, recommending remediation, mitigating problems, and verifying successful repairs.
Cisco ASR 1000 WAN Edge Routers
Cisco's ASR 1000 Series WAN Edge line of routers is designed to fill the middle of Cisco's midrange devices that concentrate on acting as headends at the wide area network edge. Cisco's ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services routers provide a small footprint, multi-function solution for enterprises requiring branch office service aggregation at multigigabit Ethernet speeds. ASR 1000 WAN Edge routers incorporate an innovative architecture that mixes on-board acceleration with programmable versatility in order to offer a rich set of concurrent services while preserving consistent performance.
ASR 1000 Aggregation Services routers include Cisco's proprietary QuantumFlow Processor made up of 40 custom Packet Processing Engines that in combination can support up to 160 simultaneous processor threads. This multi-processing structure, combined with hardware acceleration for all services, allows the high-end ASR 1006 WAN Edge router to scale up to 128K hardware queues, 32K subscribers, 4K IPsec tunnels at 10,000 sessions per second, and 2 million Netflow log records. This processing power allows Cisco's ASR 1000 Series routers to support a wide variety of advanced services concurrently in massive volume while avoiding throughput degradation that could violate compliance with service level agreements. These advanced services include Cisco Firewall, intrusion-detection services, Network Address Translation, FPM, and in-line deep packet inspection. The ASR 1000 also allows sophisticated traffic control for performing numerous levels of QoS to a packet in one pass, enhancing responsiveness for high-bandwidth multimedia applications.
Cisco ASR 9000 Series Routers
Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers are intended as edge routers for service providers who need to support world-class data, voice and video services to home, commercial, and mobile users by providing always-on operation, high speed, and application-aware intelligence. All platforms in the Cisco ASR 9000 Series of Routers run the IOS XR operating system, a self-healing, distributed OS built for continuous availability. Performance of the Cisco ASR 9000 family of Aggregation Services Routers can scale to as high as 96 Tbps per chassis. the ASR 9000 family of Routers can handle Gigabit Ethernet (GE), 10 GE, and 100 GE and have redundant fabric and power supply, power entry modules, plus backup control planes.
The ASR 9001 platform is a provider-edge router in a 6 RU package that delivers 120 Gbps of nonblocking, full-duplex fabric performance. The ASR 9001 has two bays to accept adapters for 1 Gigabit, 10 Gigabit, and 40 Gigabit Ethernet. The base chassis incorporates four 10 GE enhanced Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP+) ports as well as ports for Stratum 1 clocking, BITS, and management. The Cisco ASR 9904 Router comes in a 6 RU form factor and offers dense 10 and 100 GE connections in space-constrained environments. The 4-slot router can scale up to 4 Tbps of switching capacity in one chassis. The Cisco ASR 9912 Router has a 30 RU chassis and includes 10 line-card slots that can handle up to 550 Gbps of switching capacity. The Cisco ASR 9912 has 2 route processors as well as 6+1 Fabric Cards to provide N+1 redundancy.
Ways Progent Can Help You to Support Cisco Routers
Progent's CCIE certified consultants can help your business to plan, setup, and support a converged network infrastructure that can automate processes, reduce expenses, and accelerate time to positive return on investment. By teaming Cisco routers with Catalyst switches support and Cisco Catalyst and Meraki Wi-Fi wireless integration, Progent can significantly enhance the strategic value of your information network. Progent can provide onsite and off-site troubleshooting and can provide data center support throughout the U.S.
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