Peter Chubb wrote:
Also, have you considered other manufacturers? For example, I'm a bit
of a fan of the HP Procurve routers ... they're similarly functional
to the CISCO ones but a bit cheaper, depending on what you want to
do. And I really like their warranty (basically, if it dies because
I get to use a lot of manufacturer's routers, and for a small business
HP is currently at the sweet spot. You might also ask Juniper. Their
new EX is a very capable switch/router, but I'm not across the pricing.
If you buy then watch out for:
- the "maintenance" trap -- this is often based on RRP, not the
price you bought the router at. As Peter points out, HP's
lifetime free software and hardware maintenance is a big
plus (and the main reason they are the world's second-largest
switch supplier).
- the "software train" trap -- this is where the two features
you want are "supported" but not in the one software image.
So you buy thinking the box will do the job, but in practice
it can't.
- the resale trap -- often the software EULA doesn't allow the
software to be resold. So you can buy the hardware cheap on
the second-hand market but then face a substantial licensing
fee for the software.
- the "GBIC/SFP checksum trap". Some manufacturers only allow
use of their branded optics, despite almost all manufacturers
using Finisar parts. Cisco and HP are notorious here. For example,
the nice HP 24 port GbE switch costs less than the HP-branded
optics. If you have a multi-building office you'll want to use
GBIC/SFPs to interconnect the buildings (using UTP runs the risk
of a grounding issue destroying the switches). Equally, finding
a reasonably-priced SFP-based GbE card for a Linux box is
difficult.
In the router look for:
- VLANs, at least 16.
- enough QoS for voice, such as a voice VLAN or, better, DSCP-based QoS
- SNMP, with per-port stats, especially error counters (the ethernet
MIB has these)
- a way to back up and restore the config across the network.
- a routing protocol, preferably OSPF, so you can grow the
network.
- rapid spanning tree for switch ports (802.1w)
- IPv6 support (IPv6 forwarding, OPSFv3)
As for buying one, any of the suppliers which sell to medium sized
business will sell you a Cisco router (Alphawest, etc.) A fair few
online retailers will as well.
Also, don't dismiss the Linux box for reliability reasons -- there are
plenty of small distros that will fit in flash and flash/IDE converters
are plentiful. The usual problem is the learning curve, but if you've
never configured Cisco IOS before you'll find it has a substantial
learning curve too. Router reliability comes from hardware design,
but the space you'll be buying in has precious few reliability features
in the hardware (such as redundant, hot-swappable power and CPU, hot-swappable
interfaces, passive backplane, hitless software upgrade, etc).
--
Glen Turner
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