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From:Cisco , CISCO SYSTEMS - ENTERPRISE ,
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User Rating: |
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1 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
 Unless you're an IOS expert or have paid network IT, skip this otherwise capable router, 2008-06-23
I feel slightly bad having to torch what, featurewise, is a fantastic entry level small business router and that could work well for a IOS expert or business with an available IOS network consultant, but unfortunately what Cisco's packaged here is a subset of their higher end machines, only without being able to simplify the management of the machine.
I purchased this router because I needed to set up a reliable VPN connection back to a home office. I'd still have skipped this router, since as Cisco product, it would use IOS for management, except that Cisco advertised the wide range of "wizards" available for use in the product via SMD Express and the more advanced SMD. Big mistake.
SMD Express certainly hasn't been well tested - no easy-to-use setup wizard should ever be generating errors and textless warning dialogs on a first use. It also shouldn't be giving error messages involving non-visible aspects of the system (warning that actions will cause connection deletions when the software deliberately hides the existance of connections is one particular annoyance).
Failing to get anything working (other than inside DHCP) via SMD Express, I switched to the full SMD application, a whole can of worms and "wizards" that didn't get the job done. Despite claiming to perform "validation", it's quite easy to corrupt the router via SMD, and little of its behavior is intuitive. The "Help" file is primitive, and primarily does little but tell you the obvious (overdescibes the purpose of property textboxes ad naseum).
The wizards also fail to provide anything that functions like the highly encapsulated features of lower end routers, such as WAN-side DHCP, and often do only half the work required to actually make the feature they wizard for work. They also are quite capable of generating command errors, and only attempt to validate input at the end of the wizard, once it attempts to send commands to the router. That'll often cause the changes to go unapplied, but won't stop the software from repeatedly asking you if you wish to abandon or retry the command set -- all without any message properly describing *why* the command set failed.
So this router looks like it will work for you, and you have either IOS experience, a network admin, or lots of free time and a desire to learn IOS, it might be a good buy. For everyone else, this router's price tag will be dwarfed by the cost of either your time or a consultant's time to set up and maintain it, and you're best off trying a SOHO router from a consumer-oriented networking company first.
3 of 3 customers found the following review helpful:
 Great upgrade from a Linksys router for our office, 2007-04-28
We needed to set up a VPN to our remote hosting site, and this router did the trick. It's very reliable (we have gone through 3 Linksys WRT54G routers, I guess they're not up to non-home conditions), and uses the normal Cisco router commands. It also has a limited web interface.
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