Tips for purchasing a gigabit smart Router

According to the current development of the routing market, the demand for gigabit smart routers is increasing, so I have studied some areas that need special attention when purchasing Gigabit smart routers, I would like to share it with you here and hope it will be useful to you. For small and medium-sized enterprises, the limited IT budget requires the enterprise's network management personnel to make careful choices when purchasing a gigabit smart router.

Select a gigabit smart router that best suits your enterprise's network conditions from the dazzling Gigabit smart routers of different brands, prices, and performance on the market, we still need to consider the potential expansion and feature increase of enterprises in the future. This is not easy for general network administrators. So what factors should the network administrator consider when purchasing a gigabit smart router?

The basic principle for purchasing a gigabit smart router is to first look at the actual network situation of the enterprise, whether it is a gigabit smart router or a hundred megabytes. From the perspective of the current enterprise network applications, video applications, transmission of large files, and downloads are all extremely bandwidth-consuming. Generally, the service life of gigabit smart routers is over five years. Considering the future expansion speed of enterprises, A Gigabit smart router is an ideal choice. Secondly, depending on the brand, in general, the quality of the big brand is relatively stable, and its technical support and after-sales service are also relatively standard. In addition, the big brands of gigabit smart routers run more on the Internet, many problems have been solved in applications, and the experience in network management is also rich. You can find many documents on the Internet, and you can also easily get help in forums.

Third, the price. Products of large brands often mean high prices. If the budget is limited, you must consider the cost-effectiveness and total cost of ownership (TCO). At this time, you can view the functions, currently, Gigabit smart routers for small and medium-sized enterprises often integrate many functions. When purchasing a gigabit smart router, you can choose whether to replace some individual devices based on your enterprise's application status, for example, VPN, firewall, and other dedicated devices, you can consider using a gigabit smart router integrated with these features to save the cost for purchasing devices with higher performance and better functionality. The gigabit smart routers on the market all have many features. So which of the following features must or should be considered during the process of purchasing a gigabit smart router?

1. Integrated Firewall:

This feature is especially important for SMEs. Although the effectiveness and performance of professional firewalls are good, their expensive prices are unacceptable to small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, they do not need a high level of security, such as terminal security, software firewalls and anti-virus can be installed. A small number of terminal network administrators are not very difficult to find security faults. Therefore, the powerful functions of the professional firewall are somewhat "killing chickens with a knife ". Although integrated firewalls are not comparable to professional firewalls, with the continuous advancement of technology, the performance of Integrated firewalls has become sufficient for the network security protection of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the price of Integrated firewalls is much lower. Some routing products have powerful built-in firewalls for protection against ARP, DOS and other network attacks, some worms and hacker intrusions, and so on.

2. online behavior management and traffic management:

Management functions are becoming more and more important in the application of small and medium-sized enterprises. The management function can easily include Internet behavior management and traffic management. Online behavior management also has professional equipment, but like professional firewalls, professional online behavior management equipment is expensive, and there are fewer employees in small and medium-sized enterprises, management is relatively simple, so using professional online behavior management equipment is not worth the candle. However, Internet behavior management is essential. Although there are few employees in small and medium-sized enterprises, the outbound bandwidth is limited. Many employees, such as stock trading, movie downloading, and SNS websites, go to work hours, it will occupy valuable bandwidth, seriously affecting enterprises' normal online services. It is necessary to use the online behavior management function. Traffic management corresponds to online behavior management. Uncontrolled P2P/IM applications consume valuable network bandwidth and employee time, making small enterprises unable to maintain high productivity and competitiveness. When considering the two functions of a gigabit smart router, enterprise network administrators must not impose rigid restrictions, but be able to meet time, group, and other conditions, you can flexibly restrict and remove restrictions and other simple configurations. Therefore, when enterprises purchase Gigabit smart routers, these two management functions must be considered.

Iii. VPN functions:

VPN functions have previously been valued by chain enterprises. However, as the number and frequency of employees on business trips increase, they need to access Intranet enterprise data over the Internet. In this case, VPN can greatly reduce the security threats of enterprises, because VPN actually forms a large Internet-based LAN, and the data transmitted in the VPN channel is encrypted. Even if there are not many employees on business trips, it is necessary to select a gigabit smart router with the VPN function in consideration of the future development needs of the enterprise. Enterprise network administrators can make reasonable choices between professional VPN devices and their own VPN functions based on their enterprise application conditions.

One thing to note is that a gigabit smart router with a VPN function should preferably have multiple WAN ports. On the one hand, he can provide space for future expansion of enterprises, on the other hand, small enterprises in the early stages of network deployment, considering that China's bandwidth rental costs are relatively expensive, you can select sufficient bandwidth based on your enterprise's actual needs. In the future, if enterprise staff will increase, you can apply for another line. If a gigabit smart router has multiple WAN ports, naturally, you do not need to purchase a gigabit smart router again, which greatly saves costs. On the other hand, multi-WAN routers can distribute common Internet applications and VPN lines of enterprises, which greatly facilitates network management.

Iv. Wireless functions:

Due to the increasing number of Computer laptops in enterprises and the increasing demand for internal wireless networks, wireless networks can be free from the limitations of cables, especially easier resizing. Therefore, whether the network administrator has wireless functions is also the main factor to consider when purchasing routers.