Cisco's attempts at providing GUI tools for their hardware has never really produced a workable mid-range solution, although the Cisco Network Assistant (CNA) application for switched infrastructures does a fairly decent job of simplifying common administration tasks such as VLAN port assignments without requiring the massive financial and physical resources needed to implement their high-end CiscoWorks suite. CNA doesn't support the devices at the top of the Cisco food chain, such as the Catalyst 6509 or the 7200 routers. Cisco has been pushing SDM (Security Device Manager), a new GUI for their higher-end devices, however, and the 7200 is supported for basic routing configurations as well as advanced features such as firewall, VPN, QoS, and IPS configurations. This is a relatively new step for Cisco, and a good one, although it will certainly be eschewed by Cisco CLI gurus.
Overall, the power and functionality present in the 7200 series routers is certainly worth the investment. Cisco's "new" 7200 is a worthwhile new take on an already solid platform.
BOTTOM LINE: Cisco 7206VXR NPE-G2
| Company: | Cisco Systems | |
|---|---|---|
| Score: | Very Good -- 8.6 | |
| Criteria | Score | Weight |
| Management | 8.0 | 20.0 |
| Performance | 9.0 | 20.0 |
| Scalability | 9.0 | 20.0 |
| Ease-of-use | 8.0 | 10.0 |
| Interoperability | 9.0 | 10.0 |
| Setup | 8.0 | 10.0 |
| Value | 9.0 | 10.0 |
| Cost: | US$43,000 | |
| Bottom Line: | Cisco's 7206VXR is a bit more than meets the eye. The major components, such as the new NPE-G2, provide double the performance of the previous generation, but are fully compatible with existing chassis. The same is true for the new VPN Services Adapter, which provides IPSec VPN acceleration for high-performance VPN tunnels. Aggregation routers are generally responsible for large parts of any network, so performance and reliability aren't optional -- they're requirements. On these fronts, the new 7206 delivers. | |