Need recommendations: small business router

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d00df00d

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I need a router that has gigabit LAN ports (number is not important) and two 10/100 WAN ports to load-balance two Internet connections. Other than that, it needs to be reliable and relatively quick, and not much else. Cost is a factor; there is no fixed budget, but cheaper means more likely to happen, if you know what I mean.

This will connect 20-30 workstations and 18 IP phones in two buildings, with two 20 Mbps down/5 Mbps up FIOS connections. Most users will be doing typical email/Web browsing, but a few (usually 1-3) will FTPing gigabytes at a time. It does NOT need to have a lot of WAN ports because we will be able to buy gigabit switches separately if needed, but more ports wouldn't hurt.

Any advice would be appreciated.
cheers3.gif
 
Originally Posted By: gfh77665
My wife is a computer tech. I asked her your question, and she says go to Linksys.com. Cheaper products, but "gets the job done".

A Linksys with dual WAN ports? I doubt it. I think you'd need to move up to the Cisco line to get that...
 
What you're looking for is out of Linksys' league - Cisco will have a solution, but it might be more money than you want to spend... the CXtec idea looks good though. You get the right brand, the right quality, and a fair price.
 
The lowest tier you are going to be able to get into in the main Cisco router line-up is the 19xx series.

The 1921 has two Gig-E ports, and you would add an EHWIC card to give you your Gig-E LAN ports.

The 1941 is the same hardware essentially, but upgradeable (this is my next upgrade):

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10545/index.html

You could also go ASA and get the 5510:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6120/prod_models_comparison.html#~mid-range


If that stuff is out of your price range, you could always check their SMB line:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9932/prod_models_comparison.html

The SA520 and SA540 both do dual-WAN and have Gig-E ports. They run Linux instead of IOS. But if you aren't Cisco savvy, that may make them a better option for you anyways.
 
From what I heard (from my brother in law who works in Juniper), you can get a lot of "clone Cisco" stuff like these from Huawei at a great price. I'm not sure if you are comfortable with buying Chinese, but they dominates the low end business router market at the moment.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
From what I heard (from my brother in law who works in Juniper), you can get a lot of "clone Cisco" stuff like these from Huawei at a great price. I'm not sure if you are comfortable with buying Chinese, but they dominates the low end business router market at the moment.


I assume "Huawei" to Cisco is the same as "Pittsburgh" is to Snap-On?

Not a big fan of supporting ripped-off R&D, be it hand-tools or networking equipment.

Soon we will have a "network gear" section of Harbour Freight selling "Spisco" and "Pooniper" at rock-bottom prices. I can see it now:

"Spisco Splatalyst 24-port Ethernet switch. Running RO-OS version 12.4.51S2. $24.99!"
 
Dell's got a line of stuff they're starting to push now that is built on the same chips as Cisco stuff, but runs some open source operating system that takes commands in a very similar syntax to Cisco's IOS.

If I were you, I'd do like Panda says and go the chinese route. It's all coming out of the same factory anyway, so why kid yourself?
 
Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
Dell's got a line of stuff they're starting to push now that is built on the same chips as Cisco stuff, but runs some open source operating system that takes commands in a very similar syntax to Cisco's IOS.

If I were you, I'd do like Panda says and go the chinese route. It's all coming out of the same factory anyway, so why kid yourself?


There are plenty of products that take IOS-like commands on the market. But they aren't all Chinese knock-offs. Even Juniper uses an IOS-style interface. Of course tweaked enough to throw you off in some areas, but familiar enough to be somewhat comfortable.

BTW "built on the same chips as Cisco" is pretty vague. You mean it uses some of the same communications chipsets as certain models of Cisco gear? Alcatel, Marvell, Atheros?

Regardless, I would hardly call a DELL product a "Cisco clone". HP has been selling gear that is in the same vein for years, and has done so quite successfully. But I sure as heck wouldn't lump their products into the same class as the China-clones.

What the heck is with all the support for Chinese rip-offs?
 
OVERK1LL, good to hear from you. I was hoping you'd weigh in.
cheers3.gif
You could probably tell from my post, but I'm pretty much a network n00b. I don't know Cisco at all. I'm just trying to help solve what I think is a bottleneck issue. Previously, each building (adjacent house-sized things) was using its own Internet connection, and all was well. Then they decided they wanted to share files between buildings, so we ran two Cat6 lines between the two buildings to enable the following configuration:

Presentation3.jpg


The first block represents 2-3 switches in each building; unfortunately I can't remember the count or distribution.

The heavy users are reporting slow speeds with the new configuration. I'm presuming this is because the router is now a bottleneck, since everything is funneling down into four 10/100 connections to a router that isn't particularly known for speed. I'm hoping a better router and gigabit connections at least between the switches and the router will open things up a bit. What do you think?
 
Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
Dell's got a line of stuff they're starting to push now that is built on the same chips as Cisco stuff, but runs some open source operating system that takes commands in a very similar syntax to Cisco's IOS.

Good call. I think I still have an account there. I should call them up...


Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
If I were you, I'd do like Panda says and go the chinese route. It's all coming out of the same factory anyway, so why kid yourself?

I have nothing against buying from China, but this device has to come from a good company with a solid reputation and have a dependable warranty behind it.
 
I'm not claiming to be as well versed on the network hardware side as Overkill, as I usually mess with network applications and their administration. And I'm not saying that the chinese stuff is in the same league as these guys as far as the total package goes, but I think as far as hardware you're getting comparable stuff. Support and warranty service are where the differences lie.

The dell stuff is (and this is according to a presentation they came and gave about two weeks ago) about as exact a clone as one can get to the Cisco stuff in that they use the same or similar physical layouts with the exact same chips, but running an open source version of the IOS. They showed us benchmarks of their stuff next to Cisco, Juniper, HP, and other equipment and it was on par or better. But it did it at about 1/5th the total deployment cost of the next cheapest competitor. Now, we do stuff on a much larger scale than what you're talking about but if you have an account with them, they're really trying hard to get a foothold in this market segment so I'm sure they'll be willing to work with you.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
OVERK1LL, good to hear from you. I was hoping you'd weigh in.
cheers3.gif
You could probably tell from my post, but I'm pretty much a network n00b. I don't know Cisco at all. I'm just trying to help solve what I think is a bottleneck issue. Previously, each building (adjacent house-sized things) was using its own Internet connection, and all was well. Then they decided they wanted to share files between buildings, so we ran two Cat6 lines between the two buildings to enable the following configuration:

Presentation3.jpg


The first block represents 2-3 switches in each building; unfortunately I can't remember the count or distribution.

The heavy users are reporting slow speeds with the new configuration. I'm presuming this is because the router is now a bottleneck, since everything is funneling down into four 10/100 connections to a router that isn't particularly known for speed. I'm hoping a better router and gigabit connections at least between the switches and the router will open things up a bit. What do you think?


Given the above, the SA520 would be the device I would go with. If you need more ports, you can attach it to one of their small business Gig-E switches (if you need a model number let me know).

These things are a BREEZE to configure compared to their IOS counterparts. They run Linux and have a very intuitive web GUI that will have you up and running very quickly.

I recommend these products particularly if you intend on setting them up yourself. If it was me doing the roll-out, you'd get the 1941 with an EHWIC, and a Catalyst 2960 48-port Gig-E switch. But I'm not doing the install, and that stuff is not friendly to configure by any stretch of the imagination.

The SA520 is plenty affordable too!
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
What the heck is with all the support for Chinese rip-offs?


Not "supporting" at all, just stating how's in the current market at the moment. The low end stuff has gone generic ever since Cisco started outsourcing to China and India, then those people get head hunted away into the generic clone makers and reverse engineered their products into these market.

Teach them a good lesson and serve them right, now Cisco moved most of the R&D back to the US to avoid this scenario.

Quote:
I have nothing against buying from China, but this device has to come from a good company with a solid reputation and have a dependable warranty behind it.


Not sure what do you mean by a good company, they bought 3COM and have been selling to the not so wealthy nations for a long time. If it is good enough for a phone company in Philippine or Malaysia, they are probably good enough for your small business?

One thing though, I heard that they have been selling to some nations that are hostile to the US (Iraq in the Saddam days, Iran, etc) so if that isn't someone you want to do business with, they may not be for you.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
What the heck is with all the support for Chinese rip-offs?


Not "supporting" at all, just stating how's in the current market at the moment. The low end stuff has gone generic ever since Cisco started outsourcing to China and India, then those people get head hunted away into the generic clone makers and reverse engineered their products into these market.

Teach them a good lesson and serve them right, now Cisco moved most of the R&D back to the US to avoid this scenario.

Quote:
I have nothing against buying from China, but this device has to come from a good company with a solid reputation and have a dependable warranty behind it.


Not sure what do you mean by a good company, they bought 3COM and have been selling to the not so wealthy nations for a long time. If it is good enough for a phone company in Philippine or Malaysia, they are probably good enough for your small business?

One thing though, I heard that they have been selling to some nations that are hostile to the US (Iraq in the Saddam days, Iran, etc) so if that isn't someone you want to do business with, they may not be for you.


What happened to 3COM was tragic. They were the company that brought us Ethernet. They never could compete with Cisco though.

And I agree about Cisco's outsourcing biting them in the butt. And it serves them right. Still doesn't mean I'd buy something that is based off a reverse-engineering of their products.

There is a lot of junk available in the market in all areas. It is up to the consumer as to whether they wish to support the "good guys" that charge more for their products and actually do their own R&D, or buy the knock-offs with their "borrowed" R&D.

These knock-offs wouldn't exist if people didn't buy them.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Given the above, the SA520 would be the device I would go with. If you need more ports, you can attach it to one of their small business Gig-E switches (if you need a model number let me know).

These things are a BREEZE to configure compared to their IOS counterparts. They run Linux and have a very intuitive web GUI that will have you up and running very quickly.

I recommend these products particularly if you intend on setting them up yourself. If it was me doing the roll-out, you'd get the 1941 with an EHWIC, and a Catalyst 2960 48-port Gig-E switch. But I'm not doing the install, and that stuff is not friendly to configure by any stretch of the imagination.

The SA520 is plenty affordable too!

Thanks again for your help. I have some further questions if you still have time.

On the comparison page for the Cisco SA500 series that you linked, I'm looking at the throughput numbers for the firewall. Am I correct in reading this as the maximum bandwidth the routers can provide (between the network and the Internet) with the firewall enabled? If so, since both FIOS lines combined don't even approach 200 Mbps, is it safe to say the SA540 won't offer any advantages over the SA520 in that respect?

Also, the comparison page says that the second WAN port is "optional." Does this mean I need to purchase something extra to use it, or simply that I don't have to use it?
 
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