RE: Cisco 2611 as a firewall?

[Scott Stone <SStone@example.com>]

in many situations, replacing 35 cisco routers with linux laptops is very
likely to get you shot repeatedly :)

First of all, the routers are MUCH easier to maintain as routers than a
Linux box would be - ie, they're embedded systems that do nothing BUT route,
and as such their operating system is optimized to do so.

Secondly, a Cisco router has almost no moving parts - one fan and that's it.
Everything is solid-state.

Thirdly, Cisco routers (newer ones, anyway) have modular hardware ports so
you can add neat stuff like integrated T1 CSU/DSU modules and such.  Ok,
sure, the laptops have PCMCIA, but..

Fourth, Cisco support.  Cisco probably has the best customer service of
*any* company that I have ever dealt with, in any field.  And I usually hate
dealing with customer service...

-----------------------------------------------------
Scott M. Stone <sstone@example.com>
Senior Technical Consultant - UNIX and Networking
Taos, the Sysadmin Company - Santa Clara, CA


-----Original Message-----
From: Jean-Christian Imbeault [mailto:jean_christian@example.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 4:24 PM
To: tlug@example.com
Subject: RE: Cisco 2611 as a firewall?


For my own personal education, what are the advatages of having a commercial

router (Cisco or other) versus a cheap PC running Linux and acting as a 
gateway?

My company has about 35 Cisco routers and I was wondering after reading 
Sven's post if I could save us money on hardware and servicing contracts by 
replacing them with cheap laptops runing some *nix flavour and acting a 
gateway. (And by cheap I meant some 486 laptops or such. I saw 486's running

win95 in Akihabara for 1,000 each ...)

Jc
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