To deliver powerful, intent-based networking, you have to have a solid infrastructure foundation that offers consistent performance, ease of use, and no compromise in security. Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) platforms truly overcome these challenges, and the newest ISR member-the ISR 1000 routers -are no exceptions. We packed many enterprise features in these tiny boxes, without impacting any core functionalities. Cisco ISR 1000 offers a branch-in-a-box solution with various types of uplink connectivity, multiple Power over Ethernet (PoE) and PoE+ capable Gigabit-Ethernet ports, and built-in Cisco Mobility Express Solution for WLAN access and SD-WAN capability. In this blog we are going to explore how the built-in Mobility Express solution delivers industry-leading integrated, scalable, and easy-to-use Wi-Fi deployment and management, and outperforms the competition.

Miercom, an independent third-party testing and certification company, verified Cisco 1100 ISRs, part of the ISR 1000 Series, with equivalent HPE and Huawei routers for various test scenarios, including data performance, IPsec performance, traffic visibility, threat detection, wireless LAN capabilities, SD-WAN features, and more. Miercom evaluated various areas of WLAN capabilities of all three vendors in terms of ease of use, feature richness, cost of ownership, etc. Cisco's built-in Mobility Express solution provides ease of deployment and ease of use using a simple web dashboard or mobile app with best practices enabled by default. Huawei has greater complexity, with various dashboards and wizards to navigate through, and required reboot of the entire router, leading to downtime. HPE wireless features were nothing more than simple home Wi-Fi routers, whereas Mobility Express has advanced enterprise-class features like application, visibility, and control (AVC) and a wireless intrusion prevention system (wIPS).

Cisco's scalable Mobility Express solution offered network expansion supporting up to 50 wireless access points, all managed using a single unified dashboard, without requiring licensing, which is a huge savings. Huawei offered expansion of up to only 12 access points in the equivalent boxes and requires licenses to support those extra access points. HPE did not offer built-in wireless controller functionality, indicating there is no support for expansion. The only alternative HPE offers is to deploy a dedicated wireless LAN controller at every site, or deploy a separate Aruba Instant solution, a more expensive approach.

Of the three vendors included in the testing, only Cisco delivered a highly scalable WLAN solution for growing branches, which includes all the enterprise-class features needed-without having to deploy any dedicated hardware appliance (and associated support costs) and without paying any license fees.

To summarize, Miercom stated, "Cisco ISR 1100 routers deliver the richest set of Wi-Fi features using its built-in Mobility Express architecture, and delivers the best, integrated, scalable, and easy-to-use Wi-Fi deployment and management."

 For the full details, download the comprehensive Miercom report and accompanying test results.