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Small - Medium company router
Felonious Prime
CanadaRegistered User regular
CanadaRegistered User regular
I'm kind of the default computer guy in our office, and we need to upgrade our network. I am not a network guru at all so I come asking for help.
Right now we are using a consumer router, behind a DSL modem. Behind the router is a ?switch? with our hard lines, and a windows box running SQL for our sudo-developer.
Hard lined are 12 computers, 6 VOIP phones, and a Ricoh copier/printer. The rest, another 12 computer/tablets, are on wifi, as well as anyone who uses the wifi on their phones. We use a 3rd party VPN that I would like to get rid of and have one from the system that we get, Our sudo-developer brought in a $290.00 Cysco router and it failed harder than the existing linksys AC 1500.
We have network drops happen daily and have to reboot the router daily if we have lots of people in and out.
I don't want to spend a fortune but I would like fix our issues, we will stop growing this year until the 4th quarter but then we will grow rapidly and I want to be prepared.
I've looked at reviews and other stuff but I can't seem to find anything that suits my needs, but I would assume that it is because I'm not educated enough on the subject, and don't have the time to catch up.
All the firmware has the latest software running on them, I've looked at the custom software WDRT??? and it looks intimidating to say the least.
Thanks anyone who can help.
Right now we are using a consumer router, behind a DSL modem. Behind the router is a ?switch? with our hard lines, and a windows box running SQL for our sudo-developer.
Hard lined are 12 computers, 6 VOIP phones, and a Ricoh copier/printer. The rest, another 12 computer/tablets, are on wifi, as well as anyone who uses the wifi on their phones. We use a 3rd party VPN that I would like to get rid of and have one from the system that we get, Our sudo-developer brought in a $290.00 Cysco router and it failed harder than the existing linksys AC 1500.
We have network drops happen daily and have to reboot the router daily if we have lots of people in and out.
I don't want to spend a fortune but I would like fix our issues, we will stop growing this year until the 4th quarter but then we will grow rapidly and I want to be prepared.
I've looked at reviews and other stuff but I can't seem to find anything that suits my needs, but I would assume that it is because I'm not educated enough on the subject, and don't have the time to catch up.
All the firmware has the latest software running on them, I've looked at the custom software WDRT??? and it looks intimidating to say the least.
Thanks anyone who can help.
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Just about anything you hook up is going to choke.
Edit to be more clear: if you were in an equivalent medical situation, I'd say you need a doctor.
You should consider pricing out Managed IT solutions or actual IT employees and pitch it to your boss. I will say, 15 employees is about the break even point between Managed IT and "I should get IT staff", but they may not want to commit to the cost of IT right off the bat.
You shouldn't need to "reboot" anything, but it's a possibility that you have far too much traffic that's overloading the box. You might also want to verify that the infrastructure supports gigabit speeds and isn't trying to cram itself down some old cat5 10/100.
If you've got fiber optic internet in your location (Verizon, Google, or local) you should consider that. You're really far too large for DSL, you're larger than a T1 just with those VoIP phones. It could also be that VPN causing issues, but without knowing more about your system I can't really say for certain. Why a VPN? Who is using it? Is it connecting your office to somewhere else? Or is it strictly for letting in remote people? You're hosting services (on DSL???)?
Do you have switches or is everything plugged directly into the router? Got any pictures of how it's all laid out? Hell is there a microwave nearby even?
Without knowing much about your situation I'd recommend untangle as a pretty cost efficient way to get a router/firewall/web filter/VPN server, but if you're bothered by the DDWRT interface then you're fucked. Most routers/firewalls are less user friendly and each often has their own way of doing things and their own jargon. And as Bowen said, it will be easier for you to separate out your VoIP data connection from your pure data connection so you don't have to worry about QoS or setting up vlans. That may mean new wall drops, so there's a cost consideration to that even should you forego getting hardware to enable QoS. I'd also take another look at that Cicso box; it's possible that it was just poorly configured. At 3 bills it could be an OK piece of kit, or it could be consumer-grade worthless crap for business needs.
You should either get the green light for someone else to do this (managed service or hiring a contractor) or take ownership of your network cause otherwise you're going to end up as the system/network bitch.
I'm assuming the VoIP is the reason for the downage, they really do use a ton of bandwidth unless it's a really good codec. I'm honestly surprised there's even enough bandwidth in the DSL for it.
If I were going to spec this office I'd bring in a T1 just for the phones and put in a phone system (Avaya would be my choice here). Then I'd look into an internet solution other than DSL, maybe a second T1, but cable or fiber would probably be a better choice for cost and speed.
I'm going to absolutely agree with Bowen and say Priority #1 is to almost certainly dump the DSL for at least business-class cable or fiber. Exactly what you need depends how much bandwidth people are actually using, but I can say that the router you're trying to funnel everything through was never meant to handle so many users at once.
I don't want to spend a fortune but I would like fix our issues, we will stop growing this year until the 4th quarter but then we will grow rapidly and I want to be prepared.
No offense intended, but this combined with DDWRT being out of your comfort zone sounds like a bright red flag - for a need to get dedicated IT help involved who can assess your company's needs, then quote, install, and maintain some appropriate equipment. Not that you necessarily have to spend a fortune (depending on what you mean by "grow rapidly", anyway), but it sounds like you're already past the point where you can just grab something off the shelf at Best Buy and have it maintained by someone who's not IT by trade.
Also, I kinda get the feeling from what you said that $290 was considered expensive, but for proper business-grade equipment, it's really not - higher-end Cisco stuff (for example) can easily cost several hundred or even thousands of dollars. Heck, all the equipment in the server room at my last job easily cost more than I spent buying a new car.
The IT side of it is probably going to be nearly that much.
Plus you'll want someone on staff to maintain it which means you'll need a service contract for the phones + $50,000 a year for a full time IT guy at the least.
I wasn't thinking that $290 was expensive, I was just relaying some info about it. As for hiring an in house IT person it won't happen, I know this for a fact, actually have been actively fighting for one for the last 6 months. Myself and the in house programmer split our time between our actual jobs, programming for him and HSE for myself and problem solving IT. With it being spring, as well as the latest downturn in oil we can manage this, the rapid growth will be when oil increases and the frost stays in the ground in the fall.
The speed hasn't been an issue as most users email, surf the internet, stream video (like equipment auctions), and connect to the sql server via an in house program to track equipment, personnel, and jobs. The vpn is in place to allow select users (5 of us to be exact) to access the server remotely with our in house program, as we work from home, the field, or even the US and mexico, as we are in Canada.
We haven't had an issue with speed, just when the router locks up everything goes to shit.
So i guess my next question is do I just call up a company and say here is what I have fix/patch me up until I can get permission to get a fully fledged IT person on staff? I don't even know who I would call, just google "business network solutions in Alberta" and hope someone is near by?
I don't want to take up anymore time from you all with this, I knew it was bad but not this bad. Thanks again for your guys' help.
http://www.acrodex.com/
You'd mostly want to search for "Managed IT", business network solutions is going to get you things like sales and mid level manager type crap.
Another one that popped up that looked decent:
http://www.fullymanaged.com/
http://watchguard.com/wgrd-products/utm/xtm-2/overview
I'm a fan of that brand because it's got a good price/performance ratio, and HTTPS managment (as opposed to a Java app), but a Cisco 5505 or Juniper SRX series (220, say) would also be decent, if more expensive, choices.
Again, your company needs some kind of professional IT services, as Bowen and others have said. A real "branch office" class firewall appliance is going to cost you between $500-$1000 US, not counting support and any help you would need to set it up properly.
Watchguard gets my vote too.
I'd just avoid everything Cisco if it were me. After, or maybe slightly before, they bought Linksys they stopped having actual high end equipment and started to rely more on their brand and market penetration. Plus if you do go for the Cisco router but have other non-Cisco networking equipment I've heard some horror stories about support refusing to help. Maybe they've gotten better in the last 5-10 years since I last gave them any thought, but with so many other options out there now I haven't felt the need to even look into it.
They haven't. If anything they've gotten worse. This might be tinfoil hatting, but part of me honestly suspects they have some kind of crippleware in their stuff that intentionally fucks with the network if you mix it with other hardware, because I just can't account for the problems I've seen with them that have no visible cause, like one router that'd work fine if set up on its own but would bring a network to a standstill when in its intended place, but an otherwise identical router from a different brand caused no issue.
Not really an issue for a smaller network where you won't have a huge amount of stuff TO mix, but it's something to consider if you go Cisco now and know you'll be expanding later.
I would suggest going bigger than the model posted above. You say you'll be expanding in the 4th quarter, any bandaid you put on now you'll have to rip out in a few months, hair and all. If you know you're going to need more inside the life of the hardware your adding, you should just go ahead and get what you'll eventually need for it because an extra $500 now is better than throwing a $1000 piece of working equipment in the closet for a $1500 replacement in 6-10 months.