ISR1100 Introduction…

In small business business or enterprises where we look to get a handy,  feature and services rich router we look for Cisco ISR routers. This is due to the reason that these devices integrate alot into them and you do not need to buy separate hardware for separate services. For example small shopping outlets and where 8 to 10 people work doesn’t need to spend alot in the network infrastructure. If you suggest them to buy a router for routing and access point for wifi and then get the ISP connection then that may not be a very cost effective solution.Rather they will buy some devices which has all of this integrated into one box. And that is what Cisco ISR routers are , they are routers with access point , WLC(mobility express), Security, DSL, LTE , Switch module integrated into them.

C1100
ISR1100

In this blog we will discuss a little more about these devices.

These devices come in many flavors. Majorly Cisco has divided the platform on the basis of switching ports. Like you can have 4P model and 8P model where 4 and 8 switching ports are available.On top of that you have multi-connectivity option for WAN for example if you need DSL connection there there will a different model, if you need LTE then there will be a different module i.e. you do not need to unnecessary have a DSL port on your router if you don’t need it in future , you can choose the variant which is more suitable to your need.

For example see below table for WAN connectivity options :

ISR1111= Two GE WAN interfaces
ISR1112= One GE WAN Interface and One DSL Interface with G.FAST/VDSL2 35b/VDSL2 /ADSL2+ Annex B & J over ISDN
ISR1113= One GE WAN Interface and One DSL Interface with G.FAST/VDSL2 35b/VDSL2/ADSL2 + Annex A or M over POTS
ISR1116= One GE WAN Interface and One DSL Interface with VDSL/ ADSL2+ Annex B & J over ISDN
ISR1117= One GE WAN Interface and One DSL with VDSL/ADSL2 + Annex A or M over POTS

On top of this you can have 4 switch port or 8 switch ports on the router for example ISR1111-8P has 8 switching ports. For wireless options there are more specifications. Table given below talks about the wireless standards.
• WE=-E Wireless Domain
• WB =-B Wireless Domain
• WA=-A Wireless Domain
• WZ=-Z Wireless Domain
• WN =-N Wireless Domain
• WQ =-Q Wireless Domain
• WH=-H Wireless Domain
• WR=-R Wireless Domain
• WF =-F Wireless Domain
• WD =-D Wireless Domain
The router also comes with POE and POE+ option, In case you want to have the poe on LAN switches on the router then the default PSU would be replaced with the 115W PSU module to have the POE capability.
Wireless  : ISR1100 comes with an embedded access point. The embedded access point is basically  Cisco aironet 1815i model of access point with mobility express feature support. Which means this AP can also act in WLC mode. The wireless access point has its own DRAM and doesnt take memory from router DRAM. Router has 4 GB memory whereas AP has 1 separate DRAM GB.
LTE : ISR1100 has an integrated Category 6 (CAT6) LTE Advanced modem. LTE advanced support means it supports upto 300 Mbps data rate over LTE. It can fall back to 3g if 4g signal is not available. Also there is support for dual SIM but it can work only on active/standby mode.
Apart from above discussed features it supports Cisco umbrella , Cisco ETA(encrypted traffic analysis), SD-WAN support is in road-map, CUBE(Cisco Unified Border Element ) is in road-map. Overall this device is going to be a multipurpose handy device like Swiss army knife.
I will be going more deeper into the architecture of the device in my upcoming blogs. Stay tuned for more.
Thank You!

2 thoughts on “ISR1100 Introduction…”

  1. Hello,
    Thanks for this cool overview 🙂
    Can you explain how we to leave the sim protection to access the dual slots ?
    Thanks again
    Cheers

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