Review: Linksys LRT224 Delivers Secure, Business-Grade Routing
Most small and medium-sized businesses connect to the Internet through a DSL or cable modem. While these devices offer some necessary features (such as basic firewall protection), they lack the flexibility and capability of a dedicated wide area network router.
The Linksys LRT224 goes beyond the basics. This dual WAN business Gigabit Ethernet router delivers a stateful firewall and virtual private network (VPN) functionality that allows employees to connect to the company network securely from the road on any device.
The LRT also supports multiple networks, so businesses can run different wireless zones for different departments.
Secure Solution
The LRT’s firewall inspects data coming into the network, looking for viruses or malware. It also scans outgoing traffic to prevent employees from accessing malicious or inappropriate websites.
The LRT224 also stops denial-of-service attacks and detects other hacker attempts based on network behavior.
It can block Java, cookies and ActiveX to prevent users from accidentally triggering attacks from websites. Plus, it keeps employees from accessing certain sites (such as file sharing sites) even if they attempt to circumvent rules with proxy servers.
Greater Access
The Linksys LRT’s VPN support provides OpenVPN, EasyLink VPN and site-to-site tunneling, which allows secure connections between offices, remote employees or mobile devices.
With the VPN feature, employees working outside the office can easily access data on the office network without jeopardizing security.
With this router, there’s no need to buy expensive VPN clients. The free OpenVPN clients run on employees’ notebooks, smartphones and tablets to connect to offices using two-factor authentication.
While most basic routers support only one local area network, the LRT224 supports 802.1Q virtual LAN tagging, which allows the network administrator to create multiple VLANs.
This means the office can have several wired or wireless networks for different departments, floors or areas in a building. The server can assign different pools of addresses to each VLAN, making it much easier to administer a larger business network.
SMB-Suitable
The Linksys LRT224 offers high-quality routing and firewall protection. It delivers sophisticated features that make it suitable for larger organizations, while retaining the ease of use that users expect of SMB products.
Backup Protection
As the Internet becomes as critical as phone service (or more so), SMBs must ensure Internet access even if the main connection fails. The Linksys LRT224 supports two separate WAN connections with load-balancing capability between them. If needed, the connections combine their bandwidth or failover from a primary to a secondary connection.
The LRT224 can use two connections — whether two separate DSL connections or a mix of connections, such as a DSL and a cable modem — and split traffic between them. The router can also use a satellite, phone modem or cellular connection as a backup connection, dialing out over the backup connection only if the primary connection goes down.
