Andrew Miehs wrote:
But the big question is, what should this whole setup look like in 12 months, and does it make sense to invest in expensive cisco hardware. Don't forget - if you do go for cisco, you will need to have a spare of every card, and chasis, so you will probably need two chasis, 3 or four interface cards...
If it's going to grow sufficiently, the OP won't be using just one router. Scaling up isn't the only solution, and different platforms can be (ab)used for their individual strengths. As such, they may end up with multiple chassis in service, so the spares load isn't so bad.
In addition, if they design with redundancy, they can take a card failure and still be operational. If common cards are used throughout the design, the "spares" could be the redundant path, to be sacrificed when a spare is needed and until a replacement is gained.
PS: I prefer using real routers, as they can switch packets in their hardware... You may even want to look at a 26xx as that should probably be fast enough if you only want 2 ethernets, and are doing fast switching....
Preferably CEF switching instead of fast switching... pt