Cisco 2621 and 10Mbit Internet connection

Is that 10 MBit copper connection merely clocked at that rate, or are you expecting to be able to transfer 10 Mbit/s over it (counting all overhead) ? Is it a symmetic rate connection? e.g., are you expecting to be able to simultaneously transmit 10 Mbit/s and receive 10 Mbit/s ?

Is it a 2621 or a 2621XM ?

The 2621, not doing anything else (no sophisticated ACLs, no firewall, no VPN) maxes out at 12.8 Mbit/s of minimum-length packets; the 2621 at 15.36. So if you were hoping to drive 10 up + 10 down, neither how enough performance.

Even doing NAT might slow your performance noticably on the 26xx models. And if you aren't at least doing NAT or firewalling, then you might as well just plug the ISP connection into your switch without any router.

Where is your firewall in all of this? Why not plug the connection into it?

It sounds as if you do not have the 2621 already; the 2621 itself is End of Sale; the 2621XM is still available new. If you were planning to buy a used 2621, *don't*. If you were planning to buy a used 2621XM, make sure you know what you are getting into by buying used (no software license!)

I would suggest that you consider looking at the 2800 series instead of the 2600 series.

"If you were planning to buy a used 2621XM, make sure you know what you are getting into by buying used (no software license!)"

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Hi Walter,

Used units are availabe that are fully-licensed, SMARTnet eligible and with warranty same as new.

CISCO2621XM-DC-RF Refurbished List Price: $2,157 Quantity Available: 25

CISCO2621XM-RF Refurbished List Price $1,857 Quantity Available: 79

CISCO2621XM-RPS-RF Mid Perf Dual 10/100 w/IOS IP,32F/128D-use w/RPS Refurbished List Price: $1,857 Quantity Available: 53

Brad Reese BradReese.Com - Cisco Repair

From my experience 2621 can handle web traffic (with an ACL of two dozen lines on its external interface, where HTTP requests arrive) of up to 30-35 Mbps. At that point CPU utilization will go to around 95%, it will drop OSPF session, ... With NAT, or policy routing enabled that upper threshold will be much lower, of course.

What do you need the router for? I'd consider leaving it out altogether unless you need some sort of router function, assuming your firewall is capable enough. Especially leave it out if you have a routing type firewall (ie. Juniper/Netscreen or Fortigate), as they are quite capable of doing most routing functions as well.