Routers are the core of connectivity infrastructure, securely forwarding network traffic from one network to another. Cisco Systems makes the vast majority of the world's routers and has developed a broad product line that features routers built to provide the security, performance, and dependability features needed by companies of any size. Routers from Cisco have built-in support for redundancy, instant failover, and redundant power for improved availability and system productivity. These capabilities help companies to lay a solid structure for an IT network that is easy to expand as you support additional users, establish new sites, deploy new services, extend your system to clients and partners, and support an increasingly mobile user base.

Cisco Routers for Small, Midsized and Enterprise Companies
Cisco's routers provide an advanced solution that minimizes network downtime and ensures access to your most vital applications. Cisco's concentration on integrating innovative services with high speed allows companies to build WANs that are smarter, more robust, and more dependable. For businesses of any size that require fast, protected connectivity to today's mission-critical applications as well as a strong basis for continuing expansion, Cisco routers provide a product line engineered for secure, wire-speed transmission of concurrent mixed-media services. Cisco's latest routers embed protection and voice services within a single routing solution that speeds application deployment and lowers maintenance expenses and complexity.

SB 100 Secure Broadband Routers
Cisco's SB 100 line of broadband routers represents an economical router solution for data-only networks in small business customers with up to five users. SB 100 versions include Asymmetric DSL (ADSL), ADSL, or an Ethernet wide area network version with a four-connection 10/100 switch. Each SB 100 delivers protected access with integrated stateful firewall and support for MPLS-based VPNs. Also, an easy-to-use setup tool, Cisco SDM, permits users to set up the SB 100 and its built-in firewall, and remote administration features in Cisco IOS Software allow easy integration and centralized management.

Cisco SB 100 Series Routers have been replaced by Cisco's 850 and 870 Series Integrated Services Routers. Progent's network support experts can assist you to manage your existing SB 100 devices and show you how to migrate to more advanced products.

Cisco 800 Series Access Routers
The Cisco 870 and Cisco 850 Integrated Services Routers are entry-level routers that provide highly secure, concurrent services over broadband interfaces in small off-site offices, teleworker, and small company sites.

Cisco 850 Series access routers are designed for small offices, ideal for up to 10 workers or for teleworker sites where only secure and affordable access is required. 850 Series routers deliver protected connectivity with firewall and IPsec VPN features for small LANs, four-port 10/100 switch, protected wireless option with an antenna, and easy configuration and deployment and off-site management capabilities via Web-enabled utilities and IOS Software.

Cisco 870 Series access routers are designed for small networks, recommended for up to 20 workers or for telecommuter sites where high-quality VoIP and video and reliable connectivity using backup WAN. wide area network connections are demanded, as well as secure connections. 870 Series routers deliver high throughput for broadband access in small offices as well as enhanced security through capabilities that include stateful Inspection Firewall, IP Security (IPsec) VPNs, 3DES or AES as well as Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) and Tunnel-less Group Encrypted Transport (GETVPN), an intrusion prevention system, and antivirus support through NAC and enforcement of secure access policies.

Cisco 870 Series access routers also provide advanced QoS, four-port 10/100 Ethernet managed switch with Virtual LAN capability, secure WLAN 802.11b/g option with use of multiple antennas, easy configuration and integration by means of Web-based tools and off-site management features through Cisco IOS Software, and Power over Ethernet support for IP phone sets or wireless access points.

1800 Series Integrated Services Routers
The Cisco 1800 family of integrated services routers incorporate data and protection within a single robust solution for high-speed, scalable delivery of mission-critical business programs. The Cisco 1800 Series router design has been specifically developed to handle the needs of small and midsize businesses, branch offices, and ISP-managed services environments for access to concurrent services at wire-speed throughput. The integrated systems architecture of the Cisco 1800 Series delivers maximum flexibility and fast ROI.

Engineered for safe data access, Cisco's 1841 router offers notable additional value compared to prior generations of 1700 Series routers by delivering more than a 5x throughput improvement plus built-in hardware-based encryption enabled by an available Cisco IOS Software protection image. Cisco's 1841 device dramatically improves interface card slot performance as well as density compared to the Cisco 1700 Series routers while maintaining compatibility with dozens of available Wide Area Network interface cards (WICs) and multiflex trunk cards (voice/WICs (VWICs)-for data only). The 1841 device offers additional enhancement of Virtual Private Network performance via an available Virtual Private Network acceleration module; IPS and firewall functions; support for a broad range of interface needs, including support for optional integrated switch ports; and enough speed and expansion slot capacity for future network growth and advanced applications.

2800 Series Integrated Services Routers
Targeted at small to midsize organizations and corporate satellite offices, the Cisco 2800 Series routers comprises several platforms: the Cisco 2801, the 2811, the 2821, and the 2851. Cisco's 2800 Series routers offers significant additional value vs. prior generations of Cisco routers at similar price points by delivering up to a fivefold performance increase, up to a 10 times increase in protection and voice speed, built-in service options, and radically increased plug-in slot performance and density while maintaining support for most of the over 90 existing expansion modules in use today for the Cisco 1700, the 2600 Series, and the 3700 Series devices.

The Cisco 2800 Series routers deliver a variety of advanced simultaneous services at high speed up to multiple T1/E1/xDSL connections. 2800 Series provide embedded encryption acceleration and internal voice digital-signal-processor (DSP) expansion slots; IPS and firewall functions; optional internal call handling and voice mail management; high-capacity interfaces for a wide range of tethered and untethered access options; and enough performance and slot density for further system growth requirements and new applications.

Cisco's 2800 offers a range of common security functions including a Cisco IOS Software Firewall, an IPS, IPSec Virtual Private Network, Secure Socket Layer VPN, advanced application inspection and management, Secure Shell Protocol V 2.0, and Simple Network Management Protocol in a single protected solution. Also, by integrating security functions within the router itself, Cisco can offer special smart security solutions other security devices cannot, such as network admissions control (NAC) for virus defense; Voice and Video Enabled VPN for quality-of-service enforcement when mixing voice, video, and VPN; Dynamic Multipoint VPN; Group Encrypted Transport; VPN; and Easy VPN for enabling increasingly expandable and manageable VPN networks.

Businesses can use the Cisco 2800 router to deploy a converged IP telephony network for as many as 96 IP phones, and can securely deploy data, voice, and IP telephony on one router for their small-to-medium sized branch offices.

The 2800 Series supports a built-in wireless access point for wireless network connectivity, wireless Hotspot services for shared public wireless networks, and network services for cordless WLAN telephony and for larger sites.

Cisco 3800 Series Integrated Services Routers
3800 integrated services routers are designed for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprise branch locations to provide businesses the highest degree of network versatility, speed, and functionality. The Cisco 3800 integrated services routers smoothly integrate the latest technologies, smart services, and secure corporate communications into one robust system. The Cisco 3800 Series routers ease deployment and management, lower network cost and complexity, and provide investment protection. Cisco 3800 Series integrated services routers offer internal security intelligence, fast throughput and large memory capacity, and high-capacity interfaces that provide the speed, resilience, and dependability necessary for building business-critical security, IP telephony, business video, system analysis, and web-based applications in even the most demanding corporate environments. Engineered for performance, the Cisco 3800 integrated services routers deliver multiple concurrent services up to wired T3/E3 rates.

The proprietary routing technology of the Cisco 3800 router is designed to incorporate and combine protection and voice handling with the latest wired and wireless support for rapid installation of new applications, including application layer operations, smart network services, and unified communications. The 3800 Series integrated services router meets the throughput requirements for multiple Fast Ethernet interfaces per expansion slot, TDM interconnections, and integrated power distribution to modules supporting 802.3af Power over Ethernet, while also accommodating the existing selection of interfaces. This ensures ongoing return on investment by supporting network scaling or adapting to changes in technology as new services are added. By integrating the functions of several distinct appliances into one compact device, the Cisco 3800 router dramatically lowers the expense and complexity of administering wide area networks.

Cisco 7200 VXR Integrated Services Routers
The7200 VXR router offers exceptional performance, flexibility, and expandability in a compact footprint with a broad selection of configuration profiles. With processing throughput as high as two mega-packets / second, adapters ranging from NxDS0 to GbE, and OC-3 along with an unparalleled number of high-touch IP services, the 7200 VXR Series router is the preferred services aggregation WAN and MAN edge device for large corporations and ISPs.

The Cisco 7200 VXR Series router provides services aggregation by handling up to 16K PPP sessions per unit, voice/video/data integration with time-division multiplexer-enabled VXR frame and voice interface adapters, direct IP-interconnections, and IPSec VPN scalable to 5,000 tunnels per chassis.

The Cisco 7200 VXR router integrates into a single platform functions formerly handled by separate devices. Thanks to this consolidation, the Cisco 7200 VXR Integrated Services router provides a standalone, affordable platform that supports sophisticated LAN and WAN interfaces as well as broadband services aggregation including Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), RFC 1483 termination, and L2TP tunneling; digital T1/E1 time-division multiplexer (TDM) trunk termination for and data; multichannel T3/E3 and T1/E1 with built-in channel service unit/data service unit (CSU/DSU); ATM, Packet over Synchronous Optical Network, and DPT access; ATM IMA (Inverse Multiplexing over ATM) for and data; and light-volume Layer 2 Ethernet switching.

Cisco 7600 Series Routers
The Cisco 7600 Series Integrated Services router benefits from the Cisco Catalyst 6500 architecture with an NEBS-3 box, 256-Gbps crossbar, and 30-Mpps switching performance. High availability is implemented via redundancy plus Cisco IOS Software functions. Also, the 7600 offers a rich set of high-touch IP network services at optical rates via a variety of Optical Services Modules (OSMs) powered by Cisco proprietary PXF technology.

The Cisco 7609 Series offers the choice to use a 256-Gbps Switch Fabric Module or a 32-Gbps bus, which provide switching performance of 30 or 15 million packets per second each. When the SFM is used, the Cisco 7609 can also allow distributed switching with rates up to 168 million packets per second by running the Catalyst 6500 16-port Gigabit Ethernet network card, which is powered by the Distributed Forwarding Card and the Switch Fabric Module.

The 7603 offers exclusively the standard 32-Gbps data bus option and provides 15 million packets per second switching performance. The 7603 Series router does not support distributed switching capability.

Legacy Routers Supported by Progent's Consultants
Progent's CCIE support experts are experienced with older routers that are no longer offered by Cisco. Progent can show you how to manage these older routers and can in addition assist you to prepare for and carry out upgrades to newer models. Older Cisco routers maintained by Progent include: