mpyhala wrote:
Logging is generally used as a debugging feature and is not normally used 24/7.
I agree that many in the market segment purchasing this product will generally never log allowed policies and/or periodically review them.
However, all devices are susceptible to exploit. If this device was inside my DMZ, my risk exposure to and therefore my desire to log would be greatly diminished.
Without logging, one would never know if their firewall had been breached and has enabled someone to access their network.
Putting this aside, if we accept your premise, it’s still un-acceptable for the throughput to drop this much while logging allowed policies.
Let’s assume that we only to use allowed policy logging to debug/verify our configuration settings (changes made either during the initial setup or after deployment).
It would be reasonable and realistic to log for a period of time that ranges from a few minutes to a couple of days.
While doing this, the business would experience a significant reduction in the throughput of their internet connection (92% drop in my case). Depending on the nature of the business, this may cause significant problems for them.
mpyhala wrote:
Logging will make the performance drop on any device as it puts an additional load on the processor. The processors in the Small Business routers are powerful enough to do the job they were designed for while keeping them affordable enough for the target market.
I accept that logging will impact performance; however, it shouldn’t affect it by the magnitude that I am seeing.
I don't know if this is due to the lack of processing power inherent to this routers hardware design or inefficiencies in the programming of the firmware (I don’t know if previous firmware versions performed better).
In my opinion, if it’s due to a limitation of the router hardware, it shouldn’t be classified as a small business router and be marketed this price point.
Either way, I’ve solved my problems by replacing this router with a Netgear ProSafe FVS336G Dual WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall Router (marketed to the same small business segment that the RVL200 is marketed too).
While my company runs Cisco enterprise class hardware throughout our company, I won't be using any more Linksys/Cisco products in the small business that I support. Your competitor’s products provide greater value, performance and support for about the same cost.
