Hello.

I'm trying to setup a offiste location for my company and I was wondering if anyone could suggest some good reliable inexpensive equipment.

I honestly don't know if there is a particular make that I should avoid like the plague( buggy, bad support, always breaks, etc) or which ones are reliable and you have heard good things about or have personal experience using it?

Basically, I need equipment for the following.

1. 10/100/1000 switch. ( I'm thinking maybe Dell)

2. VPN

3. Firewall

I guess also there are a lot of VPN/Firewall combo units.

I've been looking at

1. Juniper netscreen 5 series Juniper Netscreen 5 series

2. Adtran Netvanta 2100 Adtran Netvanta 2100 website

3. Hotbrick VPN 800/2G VPN, Firewall, Switch, dual WAN failover product Hotbrick VPN 800/2G product

4. Dell switches Dell switches website

I am not locked into anything at this point. Just looking for someone to point me in the right direction or to gain from you experience on networking hardware.

Thanks so much for your time.

You will find you get more responses if you fill out your profile.

There are litanies of devices that meet those requirements, and with that a litany of opinions that come along with each of them.

For low to mid range, price wise, check out watchguard.com, zyzel.com, and sonicwall.com; for your vpn/firewall router(s).

Any 2nd rate 100/1000 switch will do if all need is simple networking; I installed a dlink a couple of years ago and not one complaint yet.

~r

Hi,

How many computers are you planning on having in the remote location? The cheapie home/small ofice networking equipment seems to work fine up to about 10 computers. Beyond this they have some serious performance problems, and you need to get more expensive commercial equipment.

You can also utilize the built-in VPN capabilities of Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server. This is actually easier to set up and has higher performance than a cheapie firewall/VPN box. If you already have Microsoft Server 2000 or 2003, you already own a powerful VPN server, so why pay for another one. Windows XP has the VPN client software built in, so why pay for it again?

If you want a non-Microsoft VPN, remember that you are going to have to match the VPN equipment at the new location with the VPN equipment at the old location for them to interoperate.

Are you running linux or windows?

Set up a PIX for the VPN system.

10/100/1000 Switch : I've had good luck with Dell. Recommend Cisco, but they are $$$. I've had good luck with Unicom as well.


If you want cheap, use as other's have mentioned Xp/Server 2003 built in firewall. If you are running a linux box, or want to build up a cheap one: Use OpenSwan.