Item CERN-OBJ-IT-007 - Cisco ASM Router

Object

One of the two "ASM/2-32EM" boxes installed in 1988, from "Cisco Systems Inc." - then an unknown 20-employee company in Menlo Park, California (USA). This is one of the first two Cisco boxes to appear in Switzerland, and possibly Europe. The 220v power supply was a special modification made for use at CERN. They supported IP address filtering, which seemed just what CERN needed to help protect the new Cray XMP-48 super computer from network hackers. The two ASM boxes were both routers and terminal servers. They protected a secure private Ethernet segment used by the Cray project, as well as providing secure terminal connections to that segment, including CERN's first dialback terminal service, which allowed Cray and CERN system analysts to work on the machine from home, using another Cisco feature called TACACS. (Kindly offered by B. Segal who discovered this company while at a Usenix Conference in Phoenix, Arizona in June 1987.)

Public

44 cm 52 cm 25 cm

Available, .