Over the past two years, I have installed several of these routers for clients with various needs, and have yet to be disappointed by any of them. The primary use of 2600 series routers in my installations has been as a main office router for frame relay networks, with branch offices generally running 1700 series routers. However, I also have two of these connected to Frac T1 internet lines (one in addition to being the main office FR router). I have been very impressed with the performance and features of these routers everywhere I've installed them. Though they can be a bit tricky to configure if you've never worked with Cisco's CLI (Command Line Interface), anyone who works with networks and has a basic understanding of routing should be able to get one up and running with a little help.

The first router I ever configured was a 2600 Series. I came into the job with no experience whatsoever on routers and minimal experience with IP routing, but a fairly good foundational understanding of how TCP/IP worked. My first installation was fairly complex, involving various frame circuits on different channels, internet over frame, and 5 remote sites. Cisco helped us determine what hardware would be required to meet all the features we needed, and without their support, I would probably still be trying to configure that first router. However, a couple of calls to their tech support had us up and running, routing IP traffic. We did later find out that because of the way their internet was set up, we needed a different interface card for their T1 line, but since they had recommended the wrong card, they got the customer the correct card (almost twice the cost) at the price of the WIC card we had been using. With a few configuration changes, we were able to get their internal network and internet access up and running. Once I had gotten through the initial experience and had at least some understanding of the IOS software, the branch routers were fairly simple to set up and get connectivity.

Since that time, I have had many opportunities to explore the IOS and increase my familiarity with it. Just like anything, the more time you spend with it, the easier it gets. While I would not recommend jumping into a router if you have absolutely no idea what it does or how to make it work, if you have a background in computers and whatever protocol you're going to be routing, you should be able to get it up and running. I would recommend a SmartNET contract with Cisco for support if you think you may need assistance with setup, as the information available on the internet is vast and it can be hard to sort out exactly what you need. The biggest exception to this is if you have a router that will be publicly visible on the internet. You don't want to take that security risk if you've never worked with one before.

Interfaces
One of the things I like best about the 2600 Series routers is the wide variety of interfaces available. You can get the following interfaces in various configurations, allowing you to connect to just about any line you may need.

WIC (WAN Interface Cards) for full/fractional T1/E1's
Network Module single or multi-T1/E1 interfaces
ISDN single or multi-interface
DSL
DS3/E3
Asynchronous ports
Voice/Fax modules

This wide variety of interfaces helps to make the 2600 series very versatile/scalable in that if you need to change/add interfaces, you replace/add a card rather than buying entirely new equipment. The 2600 also supports LAN connections with various #'s of Ethernet or Token Ring connections. For provider-caused network down situations, an auxiliary port is available for ISDN/analog dial-on-demand backup connectivity.

Software & Features
There is also a wide variety of IOS software available for the 2600 series. The software allows the router to perform similarly to other network devices such as VPN Concentrators or firewalls. The 2600 is also configurable to support the still relatively new technology of Voice over IP (VoIP). While not common in this area yet, this will be very important everywhere in the near future. Companies can use their existing network infrastructure to make what would otherwise be long distance phone calls across their data network. A newer feature of the 2600 series router is the AIM (Advanced Integration Module). This feature provides dedicated hardware to perform complex encryption calculations that would otherwise take valuable CPU cycles from the main processor.

Summary
While most users probably will not utilize all the features available in these routers (I certainly have not), they are very powerful. If you can bring the power to focus on an area that's important to you, these routers will serve you well. I have tried to at least briefly touch on many of the features available in these routers, even though my experience is generally limited to applications involving T1 circuits. Cisco's web site has excellent documentation on all their products should you need additional information on how a device would work for you. For the 2600 series, you may want to check the following URL to see if this is the right product for you:
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/pcat/2600.htm

Please let me know if you'd like to see additional information in this review, and I will do my best to add it in. Thanks for reading.

Recommended: Yes