ImageStream

Where’s David? …. Here I am!

Today I got my Networkworld.com email newsletter and I was strangly intrugued by the subject. The newsletter was titled “Where’s David?”. Immediately, I thought someone at NetworkWorld must be looking for me and must have had to send out an email to 100,000 computer users to find me (when they should have just come here or googl’ed me).

When I opened the newsletter, I found out that it wasn’t about me at all (fancy that) but it was an interesting article about Cisco and the lack of competition for the enterprise router & switch market.

Not to change the subject BUT, I think that the authors of this newsletter makes a good point. They discuss the history of Cisco and ponder the idea - how could a company that has a great router but bought just about everything else it offers, end up being such a complete dominator over the entire enterprise networking market? What happened to Cisco’s competition? I’m not going to ponder that question too long - there obviously isn’t a lot of it out there that is stepping up to the plate. I think that is unfortunate because, if you studied economics, you know that competition is always good for consumers. Competition helps drive prices down, it helps companies strive to work harder and product better products, and it gives consumers choices. I think that Cisco could use some healthy competition.

So where might that competition come from? Open source? Vyatta? 3Com? HP? Imagestream? Nortel? Juniper? Or could the “david” come from out of no where?

Here is my prediction (worth about two cents if you were betting on it) - Vyatta partners with Microsoft (or someone else with a big name) to produce an easy to use, cheap, and full-featured router for 75% less than that of Cisco. (Or is that already Imagestream?)

Who is out there to take on the Goliath, named Cisco?

What do you all think?

-David
Personal Website: HappyRouter.com - home of Cisco how-to articles & videos
David Recommends:
HappyRouter Cisco VMware Workstation & Server Video Training Series
HappyRouter Cisco CCNA & CCNP Video Training Series

Imagestream - Linux Router taking on the Giant

I am attending the Interop Tradeshow (formerly Network World) in New York City this week. This give me a great opportunity to see some amazing products, speak with the vendors, and meet other networker.

One of the many interesting products I ran across is the Imagestream Linux router and the thought of them taking on “the giant” - Cisco Systems.

Imagestream has taken Linux and created a lot of their own code to go around it. They take that then commericial product and put it on hardware. Imagestream then markets and sells these full hardware routers.

One thing that impressed me was that Imagestream sells these hardware routers all the way from their small box (called the Envoy) running at about $500, on up to their huge enterprise box (costing, obviously much much more). Still, their $500 smallest box is a great small branch office router. It it tiny (about 4lbs) but it still offers QoS, RIP, OSPF, BGP, firewall, SNMP, and more. It comes with 3 Ethernet ports and you can add a 1 or 2 port T1/E1 module. This would allow you to have a full router, with enterprise grade software features, for under $1000. This is probably a third of the cost of a comparable Cisco.

Here are a couple of links to product reviews for Imagestream’s router line:

Network Computing - ImageStreams’ TransPort Linux Router - Small and Light and Routed Just Right

Linux Journal - Product of the Day - Imagestream’s Rebel Router

Take a look at the feature of of even their lowest end router:

Software

ImageStream Linux™
High-performance Linux kernel
Scalable Inetics™ platform
Menu-driven configuration
CALEA intercept support
On-line & off-line upgrades
Local and remote logging
Real-time monitoring
Quality of Service (QoS)
Bandwidth limiting
Packet filtering
Peer-to-peer traffic control
Port forwarding
System scheduler
PPP, Cisco HDLC and frame relay
CEF-compatible bonder
MLPPP and MLFR and IMA
PPPoE and PPPoA
RIP & OSPF
SNMP or NetFlow® accounting
NAT firewall (1:1 & 1:many)
NTP clock synchronization
Concurrent bridging & routing
Secure telnet (ssh) v.2
L2TP, GRE, IPIP & CIPE tunneling
Remote RADIUS
TACACS+
DHCP client & server
VLAN tagging
IPSec & SSL VPN
VRRP
IPv6

Not that I am trying to sway everyone away from Cisco by talking first about Vyatta then about Imagestream, but I just find it fascinating that there are such great Linux-based options out there for routers today!

I think that Imagestream’s products deserve a second look. I am going to do that and I hope that you will too.

All the best to you,
David Davis, CCIE, VCP, CISSP

Personal Website: HappyRouter.com - home of Cisco how-to articles & videos
David Recommends:
HappyRouter Cisco VMware Workstation & Server Video Training Series
HappyRouter Cisco CCNA & CCNP Video Training Series

Common Sense is sometimes all it takes to protect your network from attackers

In a recent Information Week article, “A Crook Comes Clean“, a conviced malicious hacker admitted to helping a crime organization hack into companies networks and steal resources like thousands of minutes of free VoIP usage. One of the most obvious statements he made was this:

“it would have been easy for IT and security managers to detect him-if they’d been looking. “If they were just monitoring their boxes and keeping logs, they could easily have seen us logged in there,” he said. “If they had intrusion-detection systems set up, they could have easily seen that these weren’t their calls.”

IT technicians also could have set up access lists, telling their networks to allow only their own IP addresses to get in. “We came across only two or three boxes that actually had access lists in place,” Moore added. “The telecoms that we couldn’t get into had access lists or boxes that we couldn’t get into because of strong passwords.”

I think that this is a good reminder for us all to follow the basic security practices to secure our network. To me, this is as simple as what you should be doing to secure your data center physically - locks on the doors, no windows, strong doors, controlled access, etc.

I have published a number of articles and videos on how to secure your network. For example, here is a video on securing your router using IOS Access-Lists (ACL): FREE VIDEO: Harden your Cisco Router with IOS ACLs

Additionally, SANS has a great document on securing your network:SANS: Cisco Router Hardening Step by Step

Remember-

1. change default passwords & use complex passwords
2. use protocols that are secure (no http and telnet to manage routers)
3. password protect all entrances to the router and routing protocols
4. Apply ACL on your router to control management access and prevent spoofing
5. Use a firewall (in the router or a stand-alone box) to control inbound and outbound network access to and from the Internet

So much of security is just common sense and taking time to apply it.

Have a great day!

David Davis, CCIE

Personal Website: HappyRouter.com - home of Cisco how-to articles & videos
David Recommends:
HappyRouter Cisco CCNA & CCNP Video Training Series
Cirro - Quote Telecom Internet, Voice, and Data T1 circuits from an unbiased source