Cisco Question

[orion25]

I am planning on buying a house soon. I hope to wire it with Cat5 and create a network for it. I hear some great things about Cisco Switches and Hubs. Which ones should I be looking at? The Server and network gear will be in its own closet and will not be very complex to start with. Only the server, 3 desktops and a laptop.

I have seen Cisco stuff going for 65,000+. Needless to say that is a little out of my range. What are some of the cheaper offerings in Cisco Routers and Switches that would be suitable for home use, yet still be useable should I want to start a web/FTP server in the future? I will most likely be looking on Ebay for my hardware.

Thanks,
Ryan

[KILLorBE]

I can't help you, but if you do buy a Cisco router you might wanna read this (http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2003-15.html), fixes can be found here (http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20030717-blocked.shtml#fixes).

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More Cartoons (http://www.juniper.net/cartoons/):p

[orion25]

Originally posted by KILLorBE
I can't help you, but if you do buy a Cisco router you might wanna read this (http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2003-15.html), fixes can be found here (http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20030717-blocked.shtml#fixes).



More Cartoons (http://www.juniper.net/cartoons/):p

Thanks for the info. But that is why I want Cisco. The patches and updates are fairly regular when it comes to security loopholes. I work for a MAJOR retailer (on the distribution side) and we use Cisco hardware along with Dell servers (not counting our IBM RS6000 stuff) and I am very impressed with what my IS co-workers have to say about Cisco.

[FlypSyde]

Cisco products are geared more towards business enterprises. For home use there are many other less expensive manufacturers like Netgear and Linksys. Actually, since Cisco bought Linksys, you could go with one of their products. :D

There's nothing that says you can't or shouldn't use a Cisco switch, but it's way overkill.

[Kingslayer]

I'm running a Cisco Catalyst 1900 and a Cisco 2514 router at home on my DSL connection and it works great.

But I'm also trained in Cisco. The Cisco IOS is a confusing operating system. It takes weeks to learn and years to master. There are two different configurations on the routers. The running config and the startup config. (what it's doing now, and what its going to do when you reboot it) If you make ton of changes and forget to copy them to the startup config, you reboot the router and they're gone. (it can also help you as much as it can hurt you).

The switches are easy to run and manage, they usually have a nice web based configuration that a monkey can figure out.

But the routers are not for beginners. Yes, you want to start somewhere, but it's not something that you just jump into.

If you are going to go Cisco I would recommend getting a cheap off the shelf router to use while you learn the Cisco IOS. That way if you screw something up you don't go connectionless.

If you can get one cheap, go with a 2600 router. They usually have two ethernet ports built in, while the 2500's will need adapters to do ethernet.

[Bobby]

Cisco also has a SOHO series that are cheaper than the 2500/2600 series routers. Then there is the 800, 1000, 1600, 1700 routers as well. They're all going to be more expensive than a Netgear/Linksys/D-Link solution but you get what you pay for.

Obviously Cisco is a huge mark for hackers, just like MS. But you can fell comfortable knowing that Cisco is very fast in getting out patches and fixes for those security holes, usually less than 12 hrs.

It's true that Cisco bought Linksys but Linksys will stay a seperate entity and probably won't benefit much from the aquisition. Netgear was bought by Nortel a while ago, then Netgear bought itself back and is now a private company again. Bay Networks was aquired by Nortel and it seems that Netgear has benefitted from it's short ownership by Nortel. This is one of the reasons I went with Netgear over Linksys.

-Bobby

[tatanka]

the cisco IOS can be confusing and if you configure it wrong, you could leave your network open to outside individuals... I know a couple of people who use cisco switches, routers, and wireless equipment (myself included) for home use but almost all of them are either IT professionals or have had some training in the past)... Most consumer brands give you the option of sharing your internet connection and running an FTP/web server... if you still want to get cisco equipment, make sure you really know and understand what you are doing or at least hire someone who does (a six-pack of beer does wonders for getting personal networking help from your IT staff at work ;) )...

[ookabooka]

Why not use a cheap linux box instead of a cisco router? A linux box could do pretty much everything a cisco router could do, except it may consume more power. Why not just get a dedicated linux box in that closet, or do you want a cisco router for the same reason I bough a sparc workstation, just becuz. . . .:rolleyes:

[soundfx4]

All cisco stuff is going to at least be moderatly expensive seeing as they aren't aimed for consumer needs at all. They are aimed at small business up to large nationwide/world wide businesses. I'm not to sure about there products, but I probably should be seeing as I am studying for CCNA. But anyway, I would check out cisco's website for the products they manufacture, and then search for it on ebay like you mentioned. Can't really help you much more then that, but I figure that every bit of information you can get will be at least somewhat usefull. I am planning on wireing my house as well, but I'm not sure if I am going to use Cat5e or Fiberoptics. The only reason I would use fiber optics is so I wouldn't have to worry about signal loss, and so it would be ready for any future upgrades. But anyway, I hope this helps even just a little.

[trey_w]

I just recently built a house to and the whole house is wired with Cat5 E

I'm ordering the PIX 506e and the 1200 series AP.

I run Advanced server and with the above I can setup a more secure network... radius server, etc....

[TC]

Personally I think Cisco is over kill for home use, unless you want to learn the equipment - then you have an excuse. I wouldn't suggest trying to setup a linux box either - there are just as many if not more things that need to be configured correctly for secruity. If you want decent quality without spending quite as much then get 3com office switches. You don't need vlans and port management for a home lan, so why spend the money? If you want to learn IOS just get a pair of used 2500's on Ebay. Make sure they give you the DTE/DCE cable, and at least one console cable, and preferably they come loaded with ios 11+

[Bobby]

Or even easier for learning the IOS is to get an emulator. There's a lot of them around.

-Bobby

[trey_w]

I'm in the IT industry, so purchasing the Cisco stuff has more of an educational purpose for me.

It's an overkill at home for the most part... I do have a 768k upload which allows me to run some servers, therfore the added security is a must for me

[soundfx4]

sure it's an overkill, but it is fun to overkill when you have the money! Of coarse if you aren't interested in learning it at all, then it would be a headache to overkill :D But if you want to learn it, and you have some...hmmm...some...I mean alot of extra money to spend then OVERKILL EVERYTHIGN!!!! :attn:

[orion25]

Originally posted by soundfx4
sure it's an overkill, but it is fun to overkill when you have the money! Of coarse if you aren't interested in learning it at all, then it would be a headache to overkill :D

That is the entire reason I want Cisco and a Linux Server. I want to try something new and maybe learn something in the process. The server will not be a web server though. So security will not be as important. All truly sensitive documents, records, etc are kept on a comp that is disconnected from my LAN when access is not needed.

[althes]

I have a dlink router and its god enough for me but I also want to learn Cisco so I may just get one later in the year. Its good to learn something new. And overkill is sometimes best.:D

[soundfx4]

Originally posted by althes
I have a dlink router and its god enough for me but I also want to learn Cisco so I may just get one later in the year. Its good to learn something new. And overkill is sometimes best.:D



WHOOOHOOO!!! YEAH OVERKILL!!!!! :D