Help ... Which CISCO router to buy ?

Perhaps you could provide some more details on exactly what your connectivity requirments are or what you are tyring to accomplish.

If you do not need IOS then possibly your requirements would be met by one of the devices in the Linksys line.

A lot will depend on how much load you will be putting through the ports.

Merv wrotes :

Ok thank you. The problem is the following : my company (C1) needs to be connected to

2 others companys (C2 and C3) ... and another company will arrive in the future (C4).

For the moment : C2 C1 C3

We have recently changed the two links between C2 and C1, and beteewn C1 and C3. In the past they were "serial connections" ... and they are now "Ethernet Connections". And plus, we need a third ethernet connection because C1 is a LAN.

So, we need a router with at less 3 ethernet connections (4 in the future) to connect all these sites.

Joe

So since you have the connections already in place do you know the busy hour traffic volumes in terms of packets per second or preferable Mbps

Merv wrotes :

Yes, for the LAN (C1) it's 100 Mbps Full Duplex. Between C1 and C2 it's also 100 Mbps Full Duplex. And between C1 and C3 it's 10 Mbps Full Duplex. For C4 (in the future) it will be 100 Mbps Full Duplex.

That's why I need 4 Ethernet interfaces (RJ45) with all the differents following modes :

- Autonegociation/10/100 Mbps

- Autosense/Half/Full Duplex And the possibility to configure each interface as we want ... and to change it as we will want in the future.

Thanks again.

For your situation, I'd go with an L3 switch (3560), rather than a router. A lot more interfaces available and the performance will be much better. Depending on routing protocol, you may need the enhanced version of the IOS, otherwise the standard should do.

Scooby a écrit :

Are you sure ? I think this solution will be impossible for me because I really need routing functions : all the sites need to communicate with all the others sites through our site (C1), so through this router.

Hi Joe,

You may also wish to speak with your local Cisco Pre-Sales Support Contact:

Sincerely,

Brad Reese Cisco Repair

I concur with Scooby, a multilayer switch (like a 3560) is probably the most appropriate solution to your needs. It seems to me that you have 4 different LANs that need to communicate with each other, but each has its own IP addressing, etc. In such a case, a multilayer switch would act as a router passing data among the networks, but with speeds you normally want to see with ethernet networks.

Let me know on here if you have any more questions. :-)

Joe wrote:

That's just the speed the line is configured on. What is the real traffic load? How much data per second is *really* going through?

Unless there is something you haven't told us, it seems to me you are likely making a mistake by not having firewall features to keep the various companies from snooping on each other and to keep infections in one company localized to that company.

Also you haven't spoken at all about being able to find out how much internet throughput each of the companies is using, to know whether each company is getting the fair share (according to what it paid for), and to know when you need to increase your link speed.

If someone at C3 starts downloading DVDs and C1 and C2 and C4 cannot do any work because of that, how are you going to even investigate the issue with the "very simple router" that you were proposing?

Yes, the 3560 handles routing just fine - and at much better peformance than the routers. It just depends what routing protocol you use to determine what image you need. I think the standard image will handle static and rip, while the enhanced handles eigrp, ospf and bgp.

FWIW, you do loose some functionality as well. My biggest disappointment in going to switches vs routers was that netflow is no longer supported :-(

Hope that helps,

Jim

How 'bout trunking the router to a switch and using vlans? Then you only need one fast ethernet or gig ethernet interface, eh?