Cisco ISR G2, Transforming the Next Generation Branch Office Experience

Cisco ISR G2 - the Best a Branch can Get?—Any Service, Any Branch, Anywhere

Transform your branch-office experience with the new Cisco Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 (ISR G2) Family, Cisco’s latest addition to the tremendously successful integrated services router portfolio. The Cisco ISR G2s are part of the Cisco Borderless Network Architecture that enables business innovation and growth across all remote sites. The next-generation architecture delivers a new workspace experience by meeting the performance requirements for the next generation of WAN and network services, enabling the cost-effective delivery of high-definition collaboration at the branch office and providing the secure transition to the next generation of cloud and virtualized network services. Designed for optimal service delivery on a single platform, the new Cisco ISR G2 routers give businesses greater power to deliver a superior customer experience and deploy services “on demand” as business needs dictate—while reducing overall operating costs.

What Problems Do Cisco ISR G2s Help Solve?

With the number of employees growing at the branch office, IT teams are challenged to securely and efficiently connect remote locations at minimal cost. The Cisco ISR G2 not only addresses critical branch-office challenges like the first generation, it also introduces revolutionary ways to make the remote office more productive, more collaborative, and more operationally efficient. These new innovations enable branch offices to:

• Deliver next-generation WAN and network service requirements

• Become more productive through increased videobased collaboration and rich-media services

• Securely transition to cloud and virtualized network services

• Minimize energy consumption and costs to support corporate sustainability

• Enable small IT teams to scale services worldwide

Cisco ISR G2 Positioning

The Cisco ISR G2 provides a highly secure and reliable platform for scalable multiservice integration at enterprise and commercial branch offices of all sizes and small-to-medium sized businesses (Figure 1). The excellent service delivery on a single platform, now up to 8x greater performance, offers the ultimate user experience with the architectural scalability and investment protection needed to minimize overall deployment costs.

Figure 1 Cisco Integrated Services Routers Generation 2

What’s new on Cisco ISR G2?

Table 1 compares the features of the first and second generations of Cisco Integrated Services Routers.

Why Upgrade Your Existing Access Router to a Cisco ISR G2 Router?

The Cisco ISR G2 portfolio builds upon the market success of the first generation of integrated services routers with new enhancements that deliver greater value to your business with new enhancements for service virtualization, video-ready capabilities, and operational excellence. Our exciting new innovations deliver:

• Video-ready branch office for a superior customer experience with new services that transform the branch-office workspace:

• Media engines that enable business-grade video applications based on high-density video-ready DSPs that deliver the media net high-definition experience

• Bandwidth-optimized and scalable video services, including media-rich video conferencing, video surveillance, video streaming, and digital signage

• High-performance (up to 8x), nonstop branch office experience to meet your future WAN and services requirements

• TelePresence capability to your midsize branch offices with T1/E1 links

• Service virtualization to deliver highly effective business innovation that achieves unparalleled service:

• Cloud extensibility and services virtualization for mission-critical application survivability to remote sites

• Broadest services offering to all branch-office sites, including security, unified communications, WAN optimization, application integration, and customizable virtual services

• A revolutionary “on-demand” services delivery model enabled by the innovative Cisco Services Ready Engine (SRE)

• Operational excellence providing the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) with scalability, operational flexibility, and simplicity based on best-in-class service integration, innovative pay-as-you-grow model, and optimized energy efficiency:

• Superior business flexibility for on-demand service delivery with minimal system upgrades

• Increased branch-office uptime with enhanced availability features

• Greater energy efficiency with slot-based controls to decrease costs and support sustainability

• Simplified deployment with a single Cisco IOS Software image

• Investment protection with support for most of the prior generation of integrated services router interfaces

Cisco Services for the Branch Office

Services from Cisco and our certified partners can help you transform the branch-office experience and accelerate business innovation and growth with Borderless Networks. We have the depth and breadth of expertise to create a clear, replicable, optimized branchoffice footprint across technologies that will help you:

• Increase the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of deployment

• Improve operational efficiency, save money, and mitigate risk

• Continuously improve performance

Why Cisco?

Built on 25 years of innovation and product leadership along with broad market acceptance, the new generation of access routers continues to optimize service integration to transform the branch-office experience with the speed, scale, and flexibility to deliver tomorrow’s services transparently at a low cost of ownership. For more information, please visit: www.cisco.com/go/isrg2.

Table 2 compares the models of the Cisco ISR G2 portfolio.

More Cisco ISR G2 Files: Cisco ISR G2 Management Overview

Cisco Memory and Third Party Memory

How would I upload a file from my PC into a Cisco router's flash memory?

I want to replace the default music on hold playing in my office. I have the properly formatted music on a desktop. How do I get the music from there into the router? (2821 running Cisco Communications Manager Express)

What type of memory for Cisco 2811 Routers? Registered or Unbuffered?

Cisco 2811 Routers require ECC SDRAM (133 MHz, DDR266/PC2100 184-Pin) memory - should it be registered or Unbuffered?

Cisco memory? Who can tell some general info about Cisco memory?

There is no such thing? Cisco makes networking devices, mostly for large enterprises. They don't manufacture memory modules or chips.

Anything labeled Cisco memory is almost certainly produced by another vendor, but certified to work in Cisco equipment. If you're using it in a non-Cisco environment, it should work as well as any decent grade memory.

Watch the memory specs, however. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that some Cisco equipment uses ECC (error correcting) memory that most PC workstations can't handle.

Cisco memory is vital for Cisco network hardware including Cisco routers, Cisco switches, and firewalls. Questions above from Cisco users told us their common problems while choosing Cisco memory. How many types of Cisco memory? How is it used in Cisco network equipment?

Right, one secret to Cisco "Original" memory is that Cisco does not manufacture any memory themselves. The memory parts customers get when they purchase Cisco equipment are manufactured by a Cisco approved OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer). The OEM could be any company from Cisco's Approved Vendor List (AVL) which includes companies such as OKI Semiconductor, NEC Electronics, and Samsung among others. Cisco does not make their AVL public.

Approved/OEM Cisco memory refers to memory parts manufactured by companies on Cisco's AVL; these memory modules have been engineered specifically for use by Cisco Systems and undergo strict and comprehensive testing before being approved by Cisco for use with their routers and other products. These modules are guaranteed to have 100% compatibility with their corresponding Cisco equipment and are backed by a lifetime warranty.

Third party memory modules on the other hand are manufactured by companies not on Cisco's AVL and are not tested nor approved by Cisco Systems. The manufacturer does offer warranty and compatibility guarantee for these memory modules but Cisco does not. And although manufacturers of such memory modules claim to be fully compliant with Cisco's specifications, Cisco does hold the right to refuse service, under warranty, when the fault is deemed to be caused by the 3rd party memory modules. 

There are advantages to both choices. The specter that Cisco could deny warranty service to those using third party memories is the best reason to only purchase Cisco Original memory. Both Cisco original and third party memory are built to the benchmarks set by Cisco by large OEM semiconductor companies, and third party memory provides a lower cost option to users with budget constraints.