Powerful for small business'
Written: Dec 09 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Fast, reliable, customizable
Cons: Does require alot of know-how
|
|
|
| H110Hawk's Full Review: Cisco 1600 Series Routers |
This is an excellent router for use in small to medium business'. It comes with a few interface options. The configuration i have worked with is 1 Ethernet (10BaseT), and 2 serial ports (DB-60, big), plus the standard console port. This router has a removable flash card slot for storing and swapping IOS images, and such. (The config i worked with doesn't look like the one in the picture) The router can go very fast too, the serial ports clock at up to 4,000,000. This is important, because Cisco will have you believe that their DB-60 cables for this router are only rated at like 48,000, although they have been "reliably" used in the field at up to 1,000,000, and there are success stories at 4M. We have 4 of them at school, and they all work fine at 4M.
IOS (Internetwork Operating System) is a very powerful and robust operating system for the router. IOS allows for many configuration options, protocols, and data link encapsulations for the lines. Packet filters (access-lists) per interface, or even subinterface. Works with everything from Novell (IPX/SPX) to AppleTalk, and of course, TCP/IP. Can be used as a Frame Relay, HDLC, or PPP router on its WAN interfaces, and supports PAP and CHAP PPP authentication, plus access based on that authentication.
All this means that you can connect this router to the phone company, and get internet access, wether dedicated or dial-on-demand. Then that internet access can be filtered by per-protocol/port/source/destination, etc, to keep the bad out, or people from sending things directly out of the network. Overall good router.
The one down side to this (and most other routers) is to configure it fully does require alot of time reading a manual or taking a course, and just fiddling with the thing to see what it will do. A good rule of thumb is that if you think it should be able to do something, it probably can. It does come with a Web-Based configuration tool, although i have never personally used it. Cisco also has a tool called "Config-Maker" which will give you a graphical representation of your network, and let you build config files for every device on the network. This router is not stackable (at least the 1601's aren't), as opposed to the description by epinions. The front angles down sharply, and has a curved top, with lights and the like.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
H110Hawk
|
|
Member: Kelly
Location: California
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 3 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.