BIOS: Technology Means Business

3Com's Router 3012 is designed to address all of the WAN and Internet access requirements of a small enterprise. Its built-in 10/100 Ethernet port and two high-speed (up to 2.08Mbit/s) synchronous/asynchronous serial ports enable two independent WAN or VPN encrypted Internet connections, although one of these connections can be used as a backup connection to the primary link. The integrated auxiliary port provides an additional asynchronous connection for modem backup, and it supports proper routing: IP/IPX, RIPv1/v2, OSPF, BGP-4, PPP, LAPB, HDLC, SDLC, frame relay, X.25, and SLIP; with support for QoS, DES/3DES encryption, NAT, firewall, and packet filtering. As a result, you'll struggle to find such a comprehensive and well-supported router. It's just a shame 3Com doesn't include some of its excellent management software as standard, as many may struggle with the CLI.

Pros: Proper multi-protocol support; built-in firewall
Cons: Not upgradable; basic software provided as standard

The 3Com Router 3000 family is a series of fixed form-factor routers, the second in a range of 3Com routers that were first introduced early in the year with the Router 5000. Utilising a desktop design, the entry-level Router 3012 (Best Current Price: £435) reviewed here was easy to install as well as easy to maintain and manage (as long as you don't mind the command line interface). You may also be pleased to know that the router can be wall mounted out of the box. Similar to the high-end Router 5000 (£1325 ex. VAT), the Router 3012 comes equipped with security features and applications already built in.

A router is a device that forwards data packets along networks. That's it! The device is connected to at least two networks, commonly two LANs or WANs or a LAN and an ISP. Routers are located at gateways, the places where two or more networks connect and use headers and forwarding tables to determine the best path for forwarding the packets. And they use protocols such as ICMP to communicate with each other and configure the best route between any two hosts. Very little filtering of data is done through routers.

For home and business computer users who have high-speed Internet connections such as cable, satellite, or DSL, a router (including the Router 3012) can act as a hardware firewall. This is true even if the home or business has only one computer. Indeed, the use of a router quite often provides better protection against hacking than a software firewall because no computer Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are directly exposed to the Internet. This makes port scans (a technique for exploring weaknesses) essentially impossible. In addition, a router does not consume computer resources like a software firewall does.

The Router 3012 is a low-profile (251x187x36.5mm, 0.85kg) grey box that incorporates a single 10/100Base-T port, two serial (sync/async) ports, one console and one AUX serial port (both use DB50 connections). There are also six LEDs on the top of the device which provide operational feedback, such as when the device is powered and which port is being used. It also includes 64MB SDRAM and 8MB Flash memory.

Its WAN routing are comprehensive and include frame relay, X.21, X.25, PPP, PPPoE, MP, SLIP, HDLC/SDLC, leased line, sync/ssync, Ethernet, IP, IPX, OSPF, RIP v1/v2, BGP-4, and static routing. Security comes in the form of VPN (L2TP, GRE, IPSec), firewall, ACLs, NAT, Radius and PAP/CHAP, and there's also support for QoS (CAR, LAR, FIFO, GTS, PQ, CQ, WFQ, RED, WRED, LLQ), Multicast (IGMP, PIM-SM, PIM-DM), 802.1q VLAN, inter-VLAN routing, multilinks and compression.

For graphical management, 3Com's excellent but optional Router Manager application is available for purchase. For smaller networks, graphical management of the device can be done via 3Com's bundled Network Supervisor. Management via command line interface (CLI), Telnet, console port, and SNMP is standard with the device, although you'll have to manage the device via terminal connections. Initially, this means linking a PC to the console port, though once you've got it talking IP you can use Telnet over the LAN. [7]