Can someone please an expert in network, help me in this Case? I’ll be really appreciated.?

Question

As a cost-cutting measure for smaller locations, you have decided to use Windows Server 2003 as a router rather than buying hardware routers. This decision has just been announced to the rest of the IT Department. Some of your colleagues certifications from hardware router vendor are quite upset and have complained to your supervisor.

Write a report justifying your decision. As part of the report, include a list of routing services provided with Windows Server 2003 and where they can be used in the University.

Answer 1

B!atch-slap the idiot that made that call. And if YOU made the call, dunk your head in a dirty toilet for about 30 minutes until your brain clears.

By the time you purchase a server-class box and a Win2k3 license, you will have spent about 2 - 3 times what a Cisco router with similar capabilities would have cost. By the time you finish buying external DSU/CSUs or HSSI interfaces, you'll be around 5x the cost of proper routers.

You will also waste significant management and technical staff time keeping the Windows boxes running properly. You can capture a remote backup of a Cisco router config to a TFTP server in a few seconds. That wouldn't even be realistically possible on a Windows box; backups would have to be local.

Windows Server only has rudimentary routing capabilities. It does not support any of the routing protocols commonly used in an enterprise routed network such as EIGRP. If you're using MPLS for your WAN circuits, you need routers that will support BGP and Windows will never support that. (And if you're not using MPLS today, you will be in the next year or so.)

There's no way that you can justify this from a cost-cutting standpoint. Evaluated from a purely technical standpoint it's an even dumber idea.

Answer 2

Quit your job, anyone who puts a windows box as a perimiter network device is an idiot, and you don't want to work for idiots.