Which Router to Buy.

treebug00 · ‎05-01-2007

Hello,

I am wondering which router to buy for a small business. There are around 50 computers but will possible double within the next year. I will have a t1 line coming into our office. I would like to have Netflow, SPAN, and be able to configure the ethernet ports so that each could have its own ip and network/routes on it if necessary. Support for VLAN would also be a plus.

tprendergast · ‎05-01-2007

You are talking about a few devices here.

For the router, a 2811 would be the most you are going to need. You could possibly get away with one of the small office 1721/1751's, depending on what your requirements are. Note the 2811 is rack mountable, which is a benefit if you are going to use a comms rack. This will give you two gig-e ports, two hwic slots (of which one will take the t1v2 interface card), and support for the latest IOS versions.

You also need a few switches to support that number of clients. You can opt for Cisco Switches which will provide your full needs for VLAN support, port spanning for monitoring, etc. You can also use other manufacturers managed switch devices, but you lose some perks like CDP and unified configuration syntax.

treebug00 · ‎05-01-2007

I'm sorry but I failed to mention that we already have the device to accept the incoming T1. (we will have an ethernet cable coming from this device).

I was looking at the 1811-K9 but am not sure if that supports NetFlow, or setting different routes on my LAN interfaces. I see here:

http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps5854/c1650/cdccont_0900aecd8022e567.pdf

that it has "ios advanced ip services image" loaded but am not sure what comes with that

treebug00 · ‎05-01-2007

Ok. I called and talk to a representative that cleared it up. I did not know that there were 8 basic IOS packages that can be put on most of the routers. The differences between the models are their hardware capabilities, but as far as software features you simply pick which IOS you want to go with your hardware.

tprendergast · ‎05-01-2007

Yup, the IOS will deliver the features. Your only catch here is some of the newer IOS sets with the latest features may be too big uncompressed to run in memory on the 1811.

Hardware wise, it comes down to processors, slots, and ports. The 28xx series routers will handle the incoming ethernet feed with no issue. The 18xx series may be sufficient, but you could outgrow it at some point in the future and end up buying the 28xx anyways.

Just things to consider...