The router is dead. Long live the router!

In a bold, yet surprising move, Cisco has finally unveiled the new much-rumored 8500. The surprise? It's a router.

Now you are probably wondering, where is the surprise? Cisco is, after all, the world's largest router company. However, speculation was that Cisco was getting ready to announce the 8500 as a high-performance, lower-priced backbone switch with layer-three capabilities. You know, a big, fat gigabit switch. Something to plug all those Catalyst gigabit interfaces into. Instead, what we got was a high-performance, high-priced backbone router.

Details slip out on new Cisco gigabit gear 8500 overview from Cisco

And what a router it is.

It's got just about everything you would want in a high-performance router. Full routing functionality, support for every protocol ever invented, application filtering, up to 40G bit/sec of switching capacity, and up to 24M pps wire-speed routing performance with full IOS, TAG, Netflow, etc. Make no mistake about it, this is nothing like a gigabit switch with Layer 3 capabilities. Rather, this is the Mercedes of routers. It's a worthy successor to the trusty 7500, which will continue to fill a niche as a WAN-side interface due to the lack of WAN interface ports on the 8500. It also comes with a hefty price tag ($2,000 to $3,000 per Fast Ethernet port to help keep those margins way up there).

But just like a Mercedes, the 8500 isn't for everyone. Some people just don't have the right religion. That's right - religion. If you don't have have that unshakable faith in Cisco routers, then this is not the right box for you.

In fact, this box will probably force many network planners to make a fairly significant choice. Do they continue to follow the way of the router, with its high-priced ports and full-featured router functionality? Or opt instead for the quick religious fix of a gigabit Layer 3 switch for $200 to $300 per port?

In this case, the answer lies in the number 4,000. Organizations with greater than 4,000 users and an existing reliance on Cisco routers may well find that the 8500 is the ideal upgrade for the 7500 (it has everything the 7500 has, with much greater levels of performance at a lower price point - except for the WAN ports).

For organizations with fewer than 4,000 users, however, the choice may well be to opt for one of these blazing gigabit switches with Layer 3 (and above) functionality - usually at a price that is less than 1/2 of that of the 8500. This may be especially true if what they are looking for is a fast, high-performance switch to sit at the center of an IP-centric intranet where high-end router features are not required. This type of a low-cost gigabit switching solution (from any of the many startups or Cisco competitors) may also be appealing if users are budget-tight due to Y2K costs or other financial constraints.

5500 overview from Cisco

Of course, this does not mean that Cisco won't be able to play in this smaller market. The Catalyst 5500 products are a reasonably good fit in the workgroup with price points that are not that bad. Cisco has designed the 8500 Layer 3 routing components to be able to slide into the 13th slot of the 5500, adding some fairly high-performance routing functionality below $1,000 per Fast Ethernet port (however, it cannot coexist with the ATM card that also occupies the 13th slot).

And while this hybrid 5500/8500 approach is a bit on the pricey side compared to some other solutions (from both major competitors and the newer startups), it is probably more than enough to keep Cisco solidly entrenched in many of the "under 4,000 user" networks that include 5500's.

Face it, they don't call Cisco dominant for nothing. And Cisco fully understands their market position, knowing full well that they can be "close" on price or functionality and still win over better, or cheaper, products.

So where does the 8500 stand in this religious war? Right at the center of the large campus network. It appears to be the king of routers. The question is, will users continue to pay the price for that faith?