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Hey guys, I am in a class on routing and switching, and I am a little confused on routing.

This is the question I need to answer:

You have been tasked to install a new router on a network. Describe three router components or features you think are most important on a router. Use the Internet to find a manufacturer and model router you would recommend based on the requirements you think are most important.

I am wondering what you guys think would be some really great components on a router that I could talk about here that would be great for a discussion board.

This question isn't for a homework assignment or a test, its for discussion, so I am not cheating or anything. I just want to know what you guys like about routers, and where I can lead a good discussion.

Thanks!

For me:

Speed, (Gigabit Ethernet)

Usability (Will the user interface give me the control I want, in a way that is easy to work with? Am I going to be writing images to memory by each address? OR am I able to use a browser window to have fine control over the router?)

Wireless Capability? (With WPA2 encryption of course, it's the best civilian thing out there.)

A close fourth is reliability. Especially having some well-known brands overheat and die on me. So far, I've had my D-Link DIR 655 for over a year. It's got everything I want. And I keep my wireless fairly secure with full-length pass phrases using a random schedule for key changes. A couple clicks later and the wireless key is updated and I've got a new secure network.


I'm probably a power home user though. I do utilize my network for network storage and for a couple distributed computing applications (science related). And gaming, of course.

Sounds like a networking class, so I'm guessing wireless routers like Asha's 655, which are consumer or SOHO devices, may not be on-topic. You didn't specify and at this stage your prof may be looking for anything, so those could still be good points.

I would say QoS, or traffic shaping, would be an important feature. Gotta manage the load if someone's a hog. Security is going to be an issue since you don't want all the traffic going through it to be compromised. Those could both apply to SOHO and corporate environments. Reliability is going to be not just important, but critical, in a corporate installation. Self-tests and problem alert capabilities, dual power supplies, logging, stuff like that would be good features to have.

First thing....Security. Firewall capabilities and port monitoring

Second thing....Managability, routing tables, etc. Especially for creating rerouting tables in case of a failure along one segment.

Third ....reliability...quality. Your whole network relies on this device. In a large corporation we try to never have a single point of failure, thus we have redundant switching paths, dual NICS, etc. on our servers.

Thanks a lot for the info here guys, with your posts, I now have a lot more to work with then I did. I will let you know the results in two weeks, when the class catches up with me.

I did two weeks ahead so that I could concentrate on the wedding and honeymoon.

With your information, I looked at http://www.nortel.com/products/01/secur ... 123877.pdf

and decided that it might be a good router to try. Since it is only a discussion board, the product is now up for discussion! Thanks a lot for the help guys. Take a look at this router, do you think it would be a good one for a corporate network?

Gosh. I'm getting a headache trying to imagine designing/developing something that supports that many protocols. I know nobody does it from scratch anymore but it's an interesting exercise.

I completely forgot VOIP and VPN capabilities. While they're important, I don't know if they'd be deal-breakers. Depends on the environment, I guess. IPv6 might be. The RJ-45 console port is standard and in my experience Awfully Darn Convenient if not Downright Necessary.

Of course if you go into a corporate purchasing office and ask for one of these, they'd probably ask how it compares to the Cisco equivalent. I think if you can answer that one in a meaningful fashion you'll be ahead of most of your class.

What? No Fiber?

:p