Cisco Routers

Cisco routers give you a world of choices. Cisco manufactures state-of-the-art routing equipment for applications as small as residential applications, and as large as major carrier network environments, plus every business application in between. Cisco is the leading provider of routing equipment in the US marketplace and provides high quality equipment, software, and training in support of its applications. You can't go wrong purchasing a Cisco router.

SOHO Market. For residential and small business customers with single-location needs for a few devices, Cisco's Linksys product line provides routers, hubs, switches, wireless cards, and accessories required to support several devices in a secure wired or wireless environment.

Enterprise Market. Cisco has several classes of routing equipment designed for specific applications, and each class of routers by Cisco overlaps on the low and high end of each application it was designed for. Considering choices, users should opt for a router that was designed for capacity and capabilities needed for at least two years in advance.

Starting from the remote office, the following represents Cisco's enterprise router equipment series:

Within each series of equipment, model numbers will vary depending upon the specific interfaces on the product, applications supported, mounting options, built-in options, or network modules. Think of a Cisco equipment series as buying a new car. The main "box" is the same, but there are option packages that can be tailored to the user's specific needs. Cisco's equipment line integrates a full array of options in traffic management, capacity scalability, built-in or centralized security management, WAN interface options, application support, security, and application management.

Major router functions explained:

• Traffic Management: Routing gives the user the ability to control connectivity by MAC address (each network interface card has a unique address), control IP assignments either by assigning a static (never changes) address for a device (such as a network printer), or via DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). DHCP is a process where a network element sends a request for an IP address, the Router reads the request, and it compares any permissions or restrictions placed in its configuration table against the MAC address, and then assigns an IP address to the network element for use while connected. Routers are typically configured to allow a limited range for DHCP, so that the router can control how many simultaneous users can access the network at any given time.
• Security: Routers give the user the ability to configure ports for remote access or remote restriction. Also, most have tables that can be established so that only MAC addresses listed in the Router's table will be issued an IP address for network access. (Since DSL Routers don't typically include wireless access point functionality, we won't discuss WEP encryption or WPA)
• Hub: Basic routers today offer the ability for as many as 4 devices to connect via Ethernet at the same time. Hub functionality is merely the sharing of an existing connection. Hubs are available as separate units so that more than 4 ports can be made available. A good analogy to an Ethernet Hub is a multi-outlet power strip. It adds no real value other than the ability to plug multiple devices into the same source at the same time.

More information for Cisco can be found at Cisco.com.

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