Buying a CISCO Router

I have several CISCO switches at home, but I would like to buy a full functioning CISCO router that I could both use for my home network & study on.

My network:

Windows 2008 R2 running on a Dell PowerEdge box (running SCCM, Exchange, WDS)
1 Mac
1 Linux system
4 laptops running Windows 7

I want a router that does the following

- Has VPN capabilities (site to site and remote access)
- Has wireless capabilities
- Intrustion Detection or Prevention

I don't need any ISDN capabilities as I doubt I'll ever encounter it.

I've looked at the 800 series from CISCO and this looks like the model line I'd want. Any suggestions? I do not want a home based router, but one suitable for a small or medium business.

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Comments

alxx

look at gsn3 first CBT Nuggets Player

plenty of good recent threads on hardware in last few months.

wrwarwick

The Cisco 800 series should work for you. It is designed for SOHO use, so it should be perfect for what you want to do.

alxx

Also having a router for your lab and home use is fine if you are going to be only person using it.

If others are going to use it, have separate routers for your lab and the network.
I recommend having separate routers anyway as a lot of the home routers are going to be faster than the old cisco ones for your lab.

see http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/765/tools/quickreference/routerperformance.pdf
these are maximum rates for switching with services turned off.

Netwurk

alxx wrote: »

I recommend having separate routers anyway as a lot of the home routers are going to be faster than the old cisco ones for your lab.

Now where's the fun in that?

Having Fast Ethernet speed through your home still gives you plenty of bang for your buck. The bottleneck is usually the speed of your ISP anyway and 100 Mbps is still going to be much faster than that. And the big plus with an all Cisco network is that the wife and kids complain when your new access list blocks their favorite website. Gee honey, that site must have been down (a much easier explanation than explaining ACLs to them).

alxx

what can cause home hassles is if you are labbing with the router and girlfriend wife/family need to use
the net - thats if you only have one cisco router.

Can get 100Mbps home connections if you are on cable here or FTTH via the NBN as it rolls out, then they talking about future upgrade to 1Gbps in the next five to ten years.
10-20Mbps on adsl is pretty common across most cities here.

nerdydad

I too will have to side with not using your home network for your lab, when you break something, and you will, you have no way to go online to learn how to fix what you broke. Also I learned that when I just needed to do something real quick, is when things would break, and if you are married, well, don't do it, that is my marital advice.

blackninja

For bang per buck I'd go for a 1721 or 1751 & just add an AP to a switch to go wireless.

You can buy a one with max memory for next to nothing, just check out ebay.

You can use the 1751 voice as has a slot just for voice WICS.

OR

Cisco ISR 819 or 877 but will cost you.

gregorio323

I'd say get 1841

install the AP. if you want to run Voice get a 2801 or a 2811.

Maybe this spread sheet will help you choose.

http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/765/tools/quickreference/routerperformance.pdf

all cisco routers usually come with a VPN client built in as well. (which i very much enjoy)