Thank You Cisco ISR G2 2900 and 3900 Series Routers

Over the past 9 years, the Integrated Services Router (ISR) G2 router portfolio has helped tens of thousands of Enterprise and Service Provider customers build, secure, grow, and transform their businesses. It has been the most successful router product line in the history of branch networking.

Introduced in 2009, ISR G2 has been the anchor product of Cisco’s enterprise networking business.  However, there comes a time when the leader has to pass the baton to the next generation, and for the ISR G2, this time is now.  The Cisco 2900 and 3900 ISR G2 Series is End of Sale this month (December 2017).

Why now? In June 2017 we launched a New Era of Networking, taking an Intent-based networking approach across the Cisco portfolio. Built on Cisco DNA, we believe that Intent-based Networking is the future of networking and it will help our Enterprise and Service Provider customers successfully navigate the digital disruption we are seeing across all industries.

Using Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture (DNA) as our vision and strategy my team and I used the years of experience and insights we  have developed building Enterprise-grade multi-service branch platforms when designing the next generation of Integrated Services Routers – the ISR 4000 series. The ISR 4000 Series has already been deployed by over 25,000 unique customers with more than 725,000 units shipped since launch. What makes the ISR 4000 so special? It is a single platform that is designed for:

Intent-based Networking

Enterprise grade software: ISR 4000 runs Cisco IOS XE software which lays the foundation for the Intent-based networking across Cisco’s enterprise networking portfolio. Built for enterprise routing, security, unified communications, IoT, and the cloud, the ISR 4000s form the foundation for Cisco’s Software-Defined WAN as well as Cisco Software-Defined Access.

Automation and assurance: The ISR 4000 can be managed by DNA Center, which is a centralized network monitoring dashboard for managing your end-to-end network including the campus, branch and WAN. Cisco DNA Center simplifies network management so IT can move more quickly, using automation to lower costs, assurance and analytics to improve network performance, and security to reduce risk.

Best in-class performance and security

Multi-service architecture: Cisco IOS XE version 16 is an open and flexible operating system with containers for 3rd party app hosting. Standards-based programmable interfaces automate network operations and give you deep visibility into user, application, and device behaviors.

Embedded security: Application aware firewall and intrusion detection secures business critical applications. Newer features like Encrypted Secure Communications using Next-Generation Encryption (NGE) or Suite B Cryptography for secure voice communications.

Investment protection

Flexible consumption: Cisco ONE software licensing provides the investment protection with services-enabled software license portability. Customers who have Cisco ONE for ISR G2s have an easy path to move to the ISR 4000’s by just swapping out the platform and bypassing the software licenses payments. Cisco ONE also offers investment protection to existing customers looking to move to SD-WAN with Viptela.

Network functions virtualization: Integrated server blades going up to 12 cores and 32 TB storage combined with best in class network hypervisor NFVIS for running VNF’s provide enterprise grade routing with the flexibility of deploying new network services on demand.

As the Cisco ISR G2 2900 and 3900 Series pass the leadership baton to the Cisco ISR 4000, my team and I are working hard to ensure that our loyal customers can make the seamless transition to Intent-based networking for the branch and WAN. For a full list of benefits when migrating to Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers read more here.

I would love to hear how the ISR G2 and ISR 4000 Series are helping you achieve your business objectives. Let’s continue the conversation:  @jayeshchokshi or https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-chokshi-a995344.