Cisco has a very big family of network hardware and solutions that meet a variety of organizations, such as small offices, branch offices, campuses, hospitals, factories, enterprises, etc.. It’s hard to tell the detailed functions and features between different Cisco products, because some of them can be alternated, for example, a Cisco switch in a network sometimes can be replaced by a Cisco router; in a way Cisco wireless access points can do some routing…maybe that’s a little complicated for newbie to recognize who is who, what is for what, where to start and so on…
So here we refer to the Cisco’s page to compare the main Cisco products to help new users get a general idea of them.
Cisco Products for Its Target Markets
| | ISR | ASR 1000 | Catalyst 6500 | Catalyst 6800 | ASR 9000 | CRS | | | | | | | | | Description | Ideal for branch office deployments. Converged platform with industry-leading network, compute, and WAN services. | Ideal for service providers and enterprises seeking leading performance with a compact form factor. | Extends services from the campus to the WAN edge. Ideal for convergence of campus and WAN in a single system. | Extends services from the campus to the WAN edge. Ideal for convergence of campus with customized services up to 100G. | Industry’s highest-density Carrier Ethernet system with superior edge and aggregation performance. | Offers industry-leading performance and scale for service provider core applications. | | Branch | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | | Cloud access | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Industrial networking and
machine-to-machine | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | | Data center interconnect | No | Yes | Yes (Sup720 and Sup2T) | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Enterprise WAN | Yes | Yes | Yes (Sup720) | Yes | Yes | No | | Internet edge | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | | Managed services | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Mobile Internet | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | | Service provider core | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | | Service provider edge | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
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For Branch-Cisco ISR G2 Router FAMILY
| | 800 | 1900 | 2900 | 3900 | 4000 | | | | | | | | Description | Ideal for telecommuters and small offices. | Ideal for small offices requiring modular flexibility for highly secure mobility and customizable applications. | Ideal for mid-range deployments requiring business agility, WAN flexibility, and secure collaboration. | Ideal for large deployments requiring business continuity, WAN flexibility, superior collaboration capabilities, and investment protection. | Revolutionary architecture delivers gigabit performance with services without compromise. | | 3G/4G | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes
(Using external 3G/4G) | | Integrated switching | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Wireless | Wi-Fi Access Point | Wi-Fi Access Point | Wireless LAN Controller on SRE/Cisco UCS E-Series | Wireless LAN Controller on SRE/Cisco UCS E-Series | Wireless LAN Controller on Cisco UCS E-Series | | Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) | No | No | With UCS E-Series | With UCS E-Series | With Cisco UCS E-Series | | Integrated Branch Computing | No | No | With UCS E-Series | With UCS E-Series | With UCS E-Series | | VPN | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Integrated security | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Application and WAN optimization | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Unified Communications | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Video | Medianet | Medianet | Medianet | Medianet | Medianet | | Application visibility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Cloud connectors | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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WAN Purpose- ASR1000, Catalyst 6500, Catalyst 6800
More Cisco Hardware and Network Topics you can read https://blog.router-switch.com/
