This week we had the opportunity to put to the test one of Nexland's top products, the ISB Pro800Turbo Internet Sharing & Firewall router. This Internet Sharing Box (that's what ISB stands for) has some interesting features such as Load Balancing, NAT (Network Address Translation) and VPN support. With an included DHCP server and the built in 8 port switch, this router is one of the best choices for a small to medium company that wants to share its WAN connection among its workstations. I know you are eager to find out more about this router, so without further introduction, let's have a closer look at it.

Product identification

The router is shipped in a medium sized box. Included you will find (besides the router ;)) the power adapter, a 6.5 Ft CAT5 Ethernet Cable, a Null Modem (cross - over) Serial Cable, a CD with goodies (manual, browser and utilities), a printed manual and a quick start guide. The power adapter will provide the router with the 9V DC 1000mA current it needs, but it operates at 110V AC, so if you plan on using the router in Europe you will have to buy yet another power adapter in order to use the one provided. The CAT5 Ethernet cable is a straight cable, just like I have described in my article on Layer 1 devices. It will surely come in handy when configuring the router. The serial cable is rather short (about one meter), so the router will have to be very close to your computer if you will ever have to use its serial port for configuring. The CD contains the ISB Pro user manual (English and French only), Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.00, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and Symantec RaptorMobile VPN client v.6.5.3. The printed manual is English only and it is very detailed, so that even an inexperienced user can get started in no time.

Nexland ISB Pro800 product picture

The router itself is just a small box (140mm x 284 mm x 32 mm). However, it has a nice shade of violet, so it looks rather nice after all. And of course, because of its shape it can be easily stacked (no rackmount options). The router can be wall mounted or it can rest on a shelf. If you choose the later you can stick to the router four rubber stands (provided) to prevent it from slipping.

In the front of the unit there are two WAN ports, 8 10/100BaseT Ethernet LAN ports and the diagnostic led that I personally love very much because they are very useful when it comes to troubleshooting the network. The diagnostic led include three led per port indicating whether a good cable connection is present (and the connection speed) and whether the connection established operates as Full Duplex or Half Duplex. There's also a power indicator led, an error indicator led (lights up when one of ISB Pro's diagnostics have failed), a LAN/WAN Transmit/Receive led (indicating LAN/WAN activity) and the Backup Active led that lights up when the ISDN/Analog backup feature is in progress (another cool feature - I'll fill in the details later ;)).

On the back side of the unit you can see the power connector and the power switch, a reset switch, the RS232 male serial port and the DIP switches. The serial port is used to connect the ISDN/Analog line for the automatic broadband backup feature, for configuring the router over a serial link or as the sole WAN connection until broadband is available in your area. The DIP switches are used for disabling the DHCP server, resetting the unit (in case you have forgotten your password), activating the Serial Console Interface and configuring the ISB for firmware upgrades. I'll cover all these features in detail later on in this article, for now it's only important to know why the switches are there.