Cisco Cloud Services Router Reviews

I primarily use this solution in the data center.

In the next release, I'd like Cisco to add automation functions and the ability to monitor the environment and network status.

I've been working with this solution for more than ten years.

This solution is scalable.

Cisco's technical support is pretty good - they have a professional support center to handle any problems and will send out an expert to help you resolve any issues.

The initial setup is easy for one device but is more complex when numerous devices need to be configured.

This solution is kind of expensive.

I would give this solution a rating of nine out of ten.

The most valuable features of the Cisco Cloud Services Router are the integration with Amazon and Oracle cloud.

Cisco Cloud Services Router could improve by having more features. It is lacking features, such as virtualization and containerization. Additionally, there should be increased security and connectivity between routers.

I have been using Cisco Cloud Services Router for approximately four years.

Cisco Cloud Services Router is a stable solution and we have not had any issues.

Cisco Cloud Services Router is difficult to implement. 

When we move to the cloud, it's very easy to move. I use the same dashboard and the CLI. In the cloud, I have the same features I had in the data center.

I had a professional team do the implementation.

My advice to others would be to do the project phase without problems first and then move on from there.

I rate Cisco Cloud Services Router a nine out of ten.

We have been trying to establish VPN connections between retail locations on our AWS VPC. This has not been very reliable from our experience.

The deployment was pretty quick, so the AWS Marketplace options are very helpful. We are also very familiar with SCO OS and are able to bring those skills and commands into Cisco CSR, which made logical sense for us to use it.

It has the Dynamic Multipoint VPN solution, which is the number one thing that we wanted.

I would like some deployment examples and guides specific to AWS VPCs and how to separate your subnets. Then, how they tie-in with the Internet gateway and any NAT services that we are running on our VPC. This would be extremely helpful. Thus, a lot more detail around deployments would go a long ways towards easing customers' fears.

It seems pretty stable. We have never had any issues with it.

The reliability issues that we had were with the VPN tunnels working correctly. However, with the router, we didn't seem to have much trouble with it, just the connectivity.

It scales vertically, but it just costs a lot more.

With the on-premise, they are pushing their newer services routers so they have the same function as the cloud service routers do. However, because the price points are so high, they will rate limit your interface to bring the price down. Therefore, it is the same model that they are already doing in the cloud, but they are now moving that model into on-premise.

The technical support was okay. The product was fairly new at the Amazon store at that point in time, so the first tech was not very familiar with it. However, they were able to pass it off to somebody else who was able to help me.

The integration and configuration to the AWS environment was difficult. We had to make sure that we had the right subnets lined up and the Internet gateway was mapped correctly. Then, we had all the routes for the router to get out to the Internet and to map all those connections back in successfully. This took a long time.

Things which we could do on-premise very quickly took a while for us to figure out how to do with the Cisco Cloud Service Router.

The should make the Dynamic Multipoint VPN solution more affordable. Right now, at 10MB or 20MB, it makes a lot of sense. However, at 100MB, it doesn't scale well and the price goes up significantly.

We found purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was a good, easy experience. We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace for easy of purchasing.

We are still looking at alternatives. We are looking at Palo Alto as an alternative and using their IPSec tunnels.

We have familiarity with the Cisco operating system, which is why we chose CSR. We have been using Cisco products forever.

The product has value. I recommend having a partner who has integrated it before and can bring that expertise to the table. Just because your good with the physical appliances doesn't mean you will be able to exactly translate that into the Amazon networking world.

We have a couple hundred other Cisco routers, but this is the only virtual one that we have tried. The AWS version seems to be a lot less reliable, and we had a lot of issues with the initial configuration.

Due to the nature of running workloads in the cloud and needing networking in the cloud, there is no choice but to use cloud routers.

Our on-premise routers are integrated with this product. This is where we had some reliability issues in getting connections to stay on.

Overall, it is a solid product and a good router.

The stability has been very good over the years.

The product does scale quite well. There's no question about that.

Technical support is helpful.

We need to use older versions as the newest options are very costly.

The configuration is difficult.

We find the installation process to be hard.

We have been using the solution for at least 20 years. It's been two decades at this point. We've used the solution for quite a while now.

The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The scalability is there. If a company needs to scale this solution, it can do so.

Technical support from Cisco is quite good in India. They are helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of service we receive.

The initial setup is not easy. It's a difficult process.

The deployment itself took about four to five hours or so.

You do need to pay a licensing fee to use the solution. You can do a yearly or three-year subscription. The product itself is quite expensive. It would be ideal if they offered the product at a cheaper price.

We are resellers.

We are not using the latest version right now due to the fact that it is quite expensive. We are using versions that are two to three years old.

We have been very happy with its capabilities over the many years we have used the product.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations and companies.

I rate Cisco Cloud Services Router a nine out of ten.

We have a public and a private network, and we use the Cisco CSR to route traffic between them. In our private network, we have a Cisco Nexus 1000V virtualization switch that works with VMware. Our goal was to have our two LANs work together as a layer two network, and this solution forms the gateway between them.

Our CSR is set up such that one end is connected to the internet, whereas the other end connects to our public network. We have a route between the CSR and our Nexus 1000V, which is directly connected to the other switch that is included with VMware.

The most valuable feature is the SNMP traps that I use to monitor the router and the availability of the network.

The version of this solution that we are using does not support the LISP protocol. The new versions support LISP, which helps with the aggregation of routing across the landings.

I have been working with this solution for almost four years and I have about fifteen years of experience in total with Cisco products.

Bugs are common in this solution and we run into various routing issues when it comes to learning routes or using the static cloud. However, most of these issues are easily solvable.

This solution is more on the virtual side and you can handle a lot of virtual networks. At the same time, it does have some limitations on how much you can scale.

We have approximately 200 people who use this solution in our company.

I have been in contact with technical support on many occasions and they are always good. The response time depends on how the issue is rated in terms of priority, and how critical your network is.

I have not used a similar solution from another vendor.

Most of our data centers use Cisco solutions, although some of the partner sites use other products.

The initial setup was more straightforward than complex.

It took about a day to deploy. After bringing up the topology, we had to coordinate with the other teams in terms of bringing up the LAN link. We had to bring everything up to date.

I did most of the CSR deployment by myself, although when it comes to the LAN-related work, I had assistance from the LAN team.

One to two people are suitable for handling the maintenance.

This is a solution that I surely recommend.

My advice to anybody who is researching this solution is to consider scale. You can use this router in a scalable solution but it has its limitations. Overall, it works really well and does not have any large bugs or issues with it.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

My team is in charge of auditing the security infrastructure of these routers. I perform penetration testing and blue teaming in pursuit of this effort.

Our customers for this product are typically government departments.

In the current project, we are designing smart cities, in which these routers are part of the infrastructure.

The most valuable feature is the artificial intelligence assessment models. This is something that this product has over MikroTik.

Over the past couple of years, I've noticed that the Cisco CLIs and web-based interfaces have changed. As such, there is a bit of a learning curve for people. It is understandable that newer technology is different, but it would be helpful if the interface had more in common with the older, legacy systems. There should be a system in place to help existing users make an easier transition to the newer interfaces.

I have been working with Cisco routers for at least four or five years.

Cisco is a market leader in its field and this is a very stable product.

There is no doubt that this Cisco solution is scalable. I do expect to scale more in the future.

I do not set up or administer the networks, so I do not need to speak with technical support.

In addition to Cisco, I have experience with routers from MikroTik and Juniper. These are all very good routers, switches, and infrastructure in general.

I prefer Cisco because I have more people in my team who are Cisco Certified Network Associates (CCNAs), Cisco Certified Security Professions(CCSPs), and Cisco Security Officers (CSOs). 

We work with large distributed systems and the routing systems are quite complicated. We also have multiple vendors that make up our infrastructure, so the setup for us is complex because of our architecture.

In summary, this is a good product and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use it to connect different accounts with different weaknesses and also with the on-premise data center.

It connects all the accounts with the weaknesses, and this is what we were looking for. Also, it connects with the on-premise side.

It does what it is supposed to do.

It does the job, but it's not cloud native. It could be even better, like having a single pane of glass and being less expensive. However, the product works.

We work with the Amazon team for support, not Cisco. We are neither happy nor unhappy with the support. It could be better. I am missing a single pane of glass, where I can see all the connections, etc.

The Amazon team helped us implement the product. It was a good experience. It work now.

Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was easy. It was almost a one-click process to purchase CSR.

The product is too expensive on the AWS Marketplace.

We looked at Aviatrix, but then decided to use Cisco CSR.

We decided to go with Cisco because it was more known in the network sector than Aviatrix. Also, we have a long time relationship with Cisco. 

If I could decide now, I think I would go with Aviatrix because it's more cloud native than Cisco CSR. CSR works and does the job, but more in the old way. The connection with everything, it works. However, Aviatrix is more cloud native, so I would get the nice single pane of glass computer. Even the connections, it would be more intricate and easier to use.

We use only the cloud version of the product.

We have migrate our customers to the cloud along with their on-premise router. Therefore, when migrate their infrastructure to the cloud, we migrate Cisco too. This is our first use case with Cisco migrating a high availability infrastructure.

When the customer buys Cisco, they receive security and the capabilities to do many thing with networking, like routing and installation of networks. The most important thing is the security, as it brings assurance. This is the benefit to buying the product.

In this use case, AWS has a reference architecture to enable the Cisco routers in high availability and Transit VPC. This is a very powerful router and can enable us to use Transit VPC in AWS, and this is a very powerful feature that we use.

In security, it is a good product.

The possibility to use on-premise the same protocols as they're using on the cloud. When we want to do a high availability architecture, we have to use AWS features. The Cisco does not give you these features.

It could grow or adapt to changes in the cloud. For example, cloud does not support autoscaling. When people want to grow, they have to do manual activities.

Cisco is very stable and secure. I have confidence in it. I have never had a problem with Cisco.

We have customers who have huge infrastructures, and others with small infrastructures. In terms of size, our customers have around 100 or 200 employees (or connections). Our biggest customer has approximately 3000 employees.

The AWS integration into the environment is good. Cisco is very compatible with AWS.

The licensing model is good with this appliance: Bring Your Own License (BYOL). 

We never buy the product on the AWS Marketplace. We only download it. We always use BYOL. We never buy the license in the AWS Marketplace, because it's very expensive.

We also evaluate Fortinet with our customers. They generally don't want to change products, which is the main reason for staying with Cisco.

I would recommend Cisco. It's a very powerful router and a very important player in the routers of the world. It can provide many solutions that the customer needs.

When AWS when offers Transit VPC, they always recommend Cisco.

We are using it on AWS and Azure.