ASR9001 vs ASR1004, ASR1006 etc

[jonathan johnson]

Hello,

I'm looking at several options for an edge router in a small to medium sized network.  I've used ASR1001-x's and ASR1004's in the past and have been very happy with their stability and performance.  However, I'm also looking at ASR9001 as their performance looks very good when compared to their ASR1k equivalent and the price also appears much (x5) better.

I'm I missing something with regards to the price?  why is the ASR1004, ASR1006 or 1002-HX so much more than the ASR9001 yet the performance on the 9001 is better? (I understand you get hardware redundancy as an option in the ASR1006)

I suspect it might be because the ASR1k's can to some IPSec, LNS and other functions the 9001 isn't designed to.

Any input would be appreciated.

Jonno

[Aleksandar Vidakovic]

ASR9001 is built on the 2nd generation of Ethernet line cards for ASR9000 (aka Typhoon line cards). We also have ASR9901, which has the same form factor as ASR9001, but it's built on the 3rd generation Ethernet line cards for ASR9000 (aka Tomahawk line cards). It would be better consider ASR9901 because of investment protection. 

You are right in concluding that ASR1k supports some features that ASR9k does not support natively. On ASR9k data-plane features are implemented in microcode of a network processor highly optimised for ethernet frame processing, providing for much higher throughput compared to ASR1k. The ESP architecture on ASR1k provides for more flexibility in the data-plane, hence it can easily support more features natively. 

ASR9k supports CGNAT in a multi-slot ASR9k chassis with an A9K-VSM-500 card. There's no support for IPSec on ASR9k, but  MACSec can address many scenarios where data protection is required. 

I suppose your decision over ASR9k vs ASR1k will depend on which types of interfaces you require and which features need to be supported natively. 

Hope this helps,

/Aleksandar