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Introduction to Cisco ISR 4461 WAN/SDWAN Router : Enhancing Capability for SDWAN features

Today I am going to talk about the new launch in the Cisco ISR 4K Router series. The introduced model is Cisco ISR 4461 router. With the requirement of high Service modules in the router now you have Cisco ISR 4461 ISR router which has 3 SM modules in order to include the T3/E3 module requirement.

Cisco ISR 4461 Router
As per the description Cisco ISR 4461 comes with 4 onboard GE( Gigabit Ethernet ports), 3 NIM (Network Interface Module) slots, 1 ISC(Integrated Services Card for PVDMs) slot, 3 SM (Service Modules) slots, 8 GB Flash Memory default, 2 GB DRAM default (data plane), 4 GB DRAM default (control plane)
Fig 1.1- Cisco ISR 4461 WAN/SDWAN router

Comparing Cisco ISR 4461 Vs Cisco ISR 4451 router
Cisco ISR 4461 ISR router will give you the default throughput of 1.5 Gbps and can be enhanced to 3 Gbps with the help of the performance license. Earlier you have Cisco ISR 4451 router where you can get the default throughput of 1 Gbps and get 2 Gbps of throughput with the help of performance license.

While Using onboard Gigabit Ethernet Interfaces, you can have aggregate CEF throughput of 7 Gbps with the Cisco ISR 4461 router while you can achieve 4 Gbps with Cisco ISR 4451 and Cisco ISR 4431 routers.

Cisco ISR 4461 router will provide you 2x Total onboard WAN or LAN 10Gbps ports which is not available in any of the earlier models like Cisco ISR 4451, 4431 or other low end models. As we discuss the incremental in the Service module. Cisco ISR 4461 router will have now 3 SM modules while in all earlier ISR routers like Cisco ISR 4451 or 4351 you can have 2 SM modules.

You can get the default of 4 Gb of DDR3 RAM while in ISR 4451 you have 2 Gb of DDR3 RAM. Maximum memory can be go up to 32 Gb with control and service planes while with Cisco ISR 4451 you can get 16 Gb.

Added Boost License :
The Boost License delivers a license tier beyond the Performance License permitting customers to entirely eliminate the ISR4000’s performance controls. This will create the ISR 4000 platforms achieve at completely new performance levels, permitting for 4+ Gbps of IP Routing (CEF) functioning on the 4400 series ISRs. For implementations using encryption, IPSec throughput with AES 256 upturns to 250Mbps on the lowest platform up to 10Gbps on the ISR4461.

Why required Cisco ISR 4461 router ?
Adding values and making Cisco ISR 4461 router with the SDWAN Viptela features and also SDWAN with security features like Stateful Firewall, IPS/IDS, Cisco Umbrella integration, URL filtering with the maximum throughput of 10 Gbps while taking boost license you can use Cisco ISR 4461 router where the WAN throughput is 7 Gbps. Cisco ISR 4451 router can achieve up to 4 Gbps. As you know Cisco ISR 4K has compute power and you can also virtualized functions on it.

Feature Support on Cisco ISR 4461 Router
Rest of the descriptions and features are almost same with the Cisco ISR 4451 router like the capability of the supporting features IPv4, IPv6, static routes, Routing Information Protocol Versions 1 and 2 (RIP and RIPv2), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP), Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), BGP Router Reflector, Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS), Multicast Internet Group Management Protocol Version 3 (IGMPv3), Protocol Independent Multicast sparse mode (PIM SM), PIM Source Specific Multicast (SSM)

Encapsulation protocols like Generic routing encapsulation (GRE), Ethernet, 802.1q VLAN, Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), Multilink Point-to-Point Protocol (MLPPP), Frame Relay, Multilink Frame Relay (MLFR) (FR.15 and FR.16), High- Level Data Link Control (HDLC), Serial (RS-232, RS-449, X.21, V.35, and EIA-530), and PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE)

Traffic management features like QoS, Class-Based Weighted Fair Queuing (CBWFQ), Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED), Hierarchical QoS, Policy-Based Routing (PBR), Performance Routing, and NBAR

Cryptographic Algorithms Features like Encryption: DES, 3DES, AES-128 or AES-256 (in CBC and GCM modes); Authentication: RSA (748/1024/2048 bit), ECDSA (256/384 bit); Integrity: MD5, SHA, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512

Cisco ISR 4461 routers are available now, while Cisco SD-WAN Security and Microsoft Office 365 software is available beginning in the fourth fiscal quarter of this year.