The ADTRAN Netvanta 3430 is one of ADTRAN's best all-around business routers for small-to-medium sized enterprises, and one we frequently recommend to our clients when they need to upgrade their networking equipment. However, when recommending the ADTRAN 3430 one of the first questions we always hear is, “What other options or upgrades will we need?”
Like most of ADTRAN's routers, the 3430 comes with a number of upgrade options, but the one that receives the most questions is the “Enhanced Feature Pack.”
Does your business need to add the Enhanced Feature Pack to the ADTRAN 3430? Let's take a look at what it does, versus the 'vanilla' model.
Why Your Business May Need The ADTRAN 3430 Enhanced Feature Pack
On its own, the 3430 is a great little router, but that is its primary function: Acting as a gateway between your computers and the Internet, while still facilitating rapid in-network communications.
Like all of ADTRAN's products, it comes with a huge number of great features right out of the box:
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Support for two T-1 connections.
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State-of-the-art intelligent network security, working with your other routers to stop intrusions before they happen.
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The ADTRAN AOS system, which makes their management simple and easy, even for inexperienced system administrators.
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Centralized management that can be run through a single console, from anywhere in the world.
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Compact Flash access for easy backup, restoration, and auto-provisioning.
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Smart policy-based routing prioritizes the data that your business values most.
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Future-focused IPv6 compatibility, ready for the IP address changeover.
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An industry-leading 5-year warranty.
So, if what your business needs is a great router to help speed your Internet connections and facilitate your WLAN expansions, the basic ADTRAN NetVanta 3430 is all you probably need.
What The Enhanced Feature Pack Brings
The Enhanced Feature Pack expands the functionality of the 3430 significantly, changing it from a mere router and into a full-featured networking appliance to support your rapidly-expanding network and Unified Communications strategies.
The Enhanced Feature Pack adds:
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Several high-powered new security protocols, based on the IPSec standard. These boost the security of the Adtran router significantly, as well as adding support for the DES, 3DES, and AES encryption algorithms.
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Direct VPN connection ability, allowing up to 500 independent tunneled-in connections, all protected under top-grade security.
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Expanded Voice Quality Monitoring features support your VoIP systems, giving a significant quality boost to VoIP calls made through the router.
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Robust statistics-gathering, including data on packet loss, delay, and jitter. In the event of internal networking troubles, or a failing component, these statistics can quickly reduce the time needed to identify the problem.
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An additional, easy-to-use graphical diagnostic tool takes this data and turns it into human-readable information to make diagnosis even easier.
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Full compatibility with all other IPSec-enabled ADTRAN routers.
At this point, the basic differences should be clear. If your business is still primarily focused on expanding your network and consolidating on a single platform, the basic ADTRAN 3430 will be a great router for your needs.
If you already have a stable platform and your operations are now looking at expanding into larger WLAN systems or moving over to solely IP-based Unified Communications, then you will want the Enhanced Feature Pack upgrade, to allow the Netvanta 3430 to integrate fully into your larger strategies.
Finally, keep in mind that like all of ADTRAN's products, the firmware on your Netvanta 3430 can be upgraded at any time. So, if you move to the 3430 now, you will always have the option to upgrade to the Enhanced Feature Pack later on, once you need the extra power it provides.
If you have any other questions about the ADTRAN 3430, or any of the other fine ADTRAN products we carry, don't hesitate to ask!
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