Bridge-cum-Router

Perle Systems recently renamed the IOLink-520 Bridge/Router to Perle 1730 Router. This can be configured as a bridge or router to connect your Ethernet LAN and WAN connections and is meant for interconnecting branch office networks to the main company network. The router is a multi-protocol device supporting both IP and IPX, and is available in several configurations. The one we reviewed came with a module each for LAN, WAN, and ISDN BRI connections. The WAN module supports Frame Relay leased lines. It has a built-in NT1 for the ISDN. 

The IOLink-520 includes a built-in DHCP server and firewall for implementing network security. It also supports NAT (network address translation) to translate between private and public

IPs. 

Another good feature of this device is ‘Bandwidth on the Demand’, which let’s you activate its secondary link when the load on primary link exceeds. It also supports MAC address and pattern filtering, both of which let you filter Ethernet frames under pre-define conditions, before forwarding them to another network. The router supports SNMP for network management. Supported routing protocols include Rip 1 and 2, IP, IPX, SAP, Static & Proxy ARP, and ICMP. However, there’s no support for OSPF, which is pretty much standard in most routers.

Other features that the device supports are PPP over ISDN or leased line, and Frame Relay encapsulation. It also supports automatic switchover to ISDN from leased line in case the latter fails; and support for

VPN.

Configuring the router is totally command line based via Telnet or Hyper Terminal. We really missed a browser-based management interface, which is found in many routers today. The manual could’ve been more comprehensive in explaining the various configurations. 

There were no issues in performance. We configured the router to act as a gateway between a network and the Internet over its ISDN link, and it worked fine without a glitch. 

The Bottom line The bridge-cum-router works very well, but is quite difficult to configure. A better manual and Web-based

configuration would definitely add value, and added support for the OSPF routing protocol would make it easy to scale up to larger networks with this device. 

Sanjay Majumder at PCQ Labs