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Survivor's Guide to 2005: Infrastructure: Page 2 of 6

Cisco continues to lead the features race, incorporating hardware to provide security and enable VoIP into its new 2800 and 3800 WAN router lines without sacrificing performance. These models feature VPN acceleration as well as intrusion detection. Smaller companies have gotten the idea, too. Lok Technology's Airlok appliances, for instance, provide bandwidth management, firewall capabilities, intrusion prevention, user authentication and even usage-based billing at a fraction of the cost of equivalent products. Although these devices are particularly good at enabling wireless services, they're also beneficial for wired networks. And even though the vendor's performance claims remain unproven, the price and functionality of these devices are too compelling to ignore. Meanwhile, Juniper Networks' recent purchase of firewall vendor NetScreen Technologies gives it the technology to add more functionality to its edge routers.

One feature fails to spark our imagination just yet: IPv6 may have some benefits in the carrier market (think individual IP addresses for cell phones), but for U.S. enterprise applications, this remains a technology ahead of its time. Far too many IPv4 addresses and an infinite supply of private NAT addresses are available in this country. Vendors who need to recoup their IPv6 R&D investments should look to the U.S. Department of Defense (whose networks are required to support IPv6) and the Pacific Rim, not U.S. enterprises. Still, the equipment is coming, bit by bit. Nokia recently demonstrated an IPv6-enabled phone, and all the major vendors' routers support the technology in some fashion.

Regardless of the vendor's market share, consider the benefits and risks of heavy integration. Consolidated management may ease your burden, but the downsides for such heavy integration include increased dependence on one vendor and a loss of flexibility. You can't upgrade one function without upgrading the whole device.

Inside infrastructure equipment, features rule. Outside, the name of the game is speed. All along your network, from the desktop to the backbone, bandwidth continues to get cheaper. That fact is sure to lead you to temptation--Gigabit edge switches and 10 Gigabit technology in the wiring closet sound so appealing. Now take a reality break. If 10 Gigabit equipment goes for $10,000 per port today, who's to say that price won't be $5,000 when you really need it?

As the price per port of 100-Mbps and Gigabit edge switches drops again this year, vendors' bandwidth mantra is likely to be, "Gigabit to the desktop." You should consider this only if you have demonstrated a need, or if you have other reasons to upgrade anyway. Most business applications still run just fine on wireless networks with a maximum speed of shared 6 Mbps, and telecommuters on a WAN get by with even less.