Multi-WAN Router Recommendations and Experiences

[zzzzzzzzzz]

I have been looking into the purchase of an efficient and reliable (very important) multi-WAN router, with at least three (3) WAN ports, for a 20-computer business gigabit LAN. The WANs connecting to the multi-WAN router would mainly be Internet connections (fiber, cable, and DSL).

Please let me know of any recommendations and experiences with Multi-WAN routers.

What brands are known to be of good quality? Please also note perceived quality levels if possible.

I have never used Multi-WAN routers before. Are there any caveats that I should be aware of?

For those interested in this thread that are unfamiliar with multi-WAN routing devices, an example of devices may be found:http://www.peplink.com/balance/tech-spec/

[banyan_tree]

I recommend Peplink.

My company now is using a Balance 710 in the headquarter. We got a pair of it for hardware redundancy. They did not have to failover even once in last two years except for firmware upgrades. In each upgrade, some nice features are also added. e.g. Site-to-Site VPN. We are now using it to connect our 3 branch offices. Sweet! :santa:

You can take a look at the Balance 710. It has a gigabit LAN port. With its 7 WAN ports, you'll have plenty of room to add more WANs in the future. The 3 WAN model Balance 390 also has a gigabit LAN port. If you do not need 7 WANs, it may also be a good choice for you.

[SuperMiguel]

umm u need 3 lines to feed 20 computers?

[pharoer]

umm u need 3 lines to feed 20 computers?

HA is a b*tch!

[SuperMiguel]

HA is a b*tch!

lol

[zzzzzzzzzz]

umm u need 3 lines to feed 20 computers?No.

[zzzzzzzzzz]

HA is a b*tch!I do not understand. What is "HA"?

[SuperMiguel]

No.

what are u trying to do? or whats your goal? on using 3 wan lines?

[zzzzzzzzzz]

what are u trying to do? or whats your goal? on using 3 wan lines?I am trying to provide my office LAN with fast and reliable Internet access (both upstream and downstream). I could also use bonded T1 lines, but it is more expensive.

By using circuits from different service provides, I may lessen the risk of a single service provider failing (financial concept of diversification).

The multiple Internet access lines, in aggregate, should provide the office with fast service.

[SuperMiguel]

well if u really have the money to pay for 3 lines.. i guess u have the money to buy a cisco router, and put 3 wan ports on it and that will do the trick :)

[kurtsee]

I would recommend Peplink too. Not (only) because I work there, but because I truly believe you will be satisfied with the speed and stability that a Peplink Balance gives you.

And yes while line gets faster and cheaper, they however do not get much stabler. The stability that link redundancy gives you cannot be replaced, not even by the fattest pipe there is costing you a fortune every month.

Drop me a message/mail if you have any question, any question at all.

Here is the link to our online demo, where you will fin out for yourself what we support and we dont. Also how easy it is to set thing up. We are quite proud of that. :beer:
http://balancedemo.peplink.com/demo/cgi-bin/MANGA/index.cgi

Cheers,
Kurt

[gangaskan]

well if u really have the money to pay for 3 lines.. i guess u have the money to buy a cisco router, and put 3 wan ports on it and that will do the trick :)

yup. i was thinking a 2801, but that might be filled to the brim with voice ports. something like a 2811 would be good, if they choose to later on do voice. that's what i have at work connected to our PRI's.

another option would be a juniper NSA or router

or you can do maybe a sonicwall, but it may or may not be able to do 3x wan maybe just 2.

[zzzzzzzzzz]

yup. i was thinking a 2801, but that might be filled to the brim with voice ports. something like a 2811 would be good, if they choose to later on do voice.The LAN ports of the Cisco 2801 and Cisco 2811 routers would not work well for the company I act as agent for; they do not have Gagibit Ethernet ports.

[gangaskan]

The LAN ports of the Cisco 2801 and Cisco 2811 routers would not work well for the company I act as agent for; they do not have Gagibit Ethernet ports.

you're only going as fast as your modems are man. unless your pipes are a gig each, its moot.

edit: 10/100 would work splendid for pretty much anything you throw at it.

[zzzzzzzzzz]

you're only going as fast as your modems are man. unless your pipes are a gig each, its moot.

edit: 10/100 would work splendid for pretty much anything you throw at it.Traffic within the LAN may not be as good with Fast Ethernet as it may be with Gigabit Ethernet. Traffic to the WANs, however, would be the same.

[Ddruid_SMP]

Traffic within the LAN may not be as good with Fast Ethernet as it may be with Gigabit Ethernet. Traffic to the WANs, however, would be the same.
Why not just use a GiG-e Switch behind the router? For a business you should have a good managed switch anyway.

[gangaskan]

Why not just use a GiG-e Switch behind the router? For a business you should have a good managed switch anyway.

thats what i was thinking ...

[SuperMiguel]

The LAN ports of the Cisco 2801 and Cisco 2811 routers would not work well for the company I act as agent for; they do not have Gagibit Ethernet ports.


ummm just get a gigabit switch... and put it behind the router.. i mean why u need gigabit on a router?? i reallllllllllly doubt that u have a gigabit wan connecion... but if u do u can buyt this :
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps5854/prod_qas0900aecd80169bf0_ps5949_Products_Q_and_A_I tem.html

[zzzzzzzzzz]

Why not just use a GiG-e Switch behind the router? For a business you should have a good managed switch anyway.My understanding was that the router manages all traffic of its nodes.

If a router using Fast Ethernet LAN ports is connected to a managed gigabit switch, would the link speed about the LAN be limited to 100 Mbps?

[gangaskan]

My understanding was that the router manages all traffic of its nodes.

If a router using Fast Ethernet LAN ports is connected to a managed gigabit switch, would the link speed about the LAN be limited to 100 Mbps?

only if it has to travel through it. if you're switched it goes from port to port on mac address learning.

typically, you would have a core switch that connects all your other sub switches, and that core switch will connect to the router. now, this is the ideal solution, however, sometimes not implemented :)

[zzzzzzzzzz]

only if it has to travel through it. if you're switched it goes from port to port on mac address learning.Understood.

If a managed gigabit switch connects to a router with Fast Ethernet LAN ports and Windows-running computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adapters, would Windows report the link speed at 100 Mbps but transfer between other computers on the switch at Gigabit Ethernet rate?.

you would have a core switch that connects all your other sub switches, and that core switch will connect to the router. now, this is the ideal solution, however, sometimes not implemented :)I have sometimes seen a simple office network described using the term "patch panel". Is a "patch panel" generally a managed switch?

[SuperMiguel]

Understood.
If a managed gigabit switch connects to a router with Fast Ethernet LAN ports and Windows-running computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adapters, would Windows report the link speed at 100 Mbps but transfer between other computers on the switch at Gigabit Ethernet rate?.

If the windows computer are connected to a gigabit switch and they have gigabit ethernet, the comunication between these computer will be at gigabit speed


I have sometimes seen a simple office network described using the term "patch panel". Is a "patch panel" generally a managed switch?

best definition for patch panel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_panel. Short definition: Cables from you computer will go to a patch panel for organisation porpuses and from the patch panel they will go to the switch. Reason: If you have 10 computers and you decide to move your switch 1ft to the right( location). Instead of running 10 new cables for the computers because the cables are 1ft short, all you do is put a 1ft longer cable from the patch panel to the switch.

[I.M.O.G.]

A patch panel is just a panel of dumb interfaces. It looks like this...

You have an office with 20 cubicles. Each cubicle has a wall jack for 2 network ports. Every single port is wired back to the networking closet, because you only want to run those cables once - you don't want to have to go back and run a cable thru the office, its neater, more effecient, and somewhat cost effective to do it up front.

In the networking closet, every single one of those 40 ports are hard wired into the back of the patch panel. However, it's unlikely that all 40 ports on the patch panel have a "patch cable" connecting them to the switch next to it. It's also likely that theres only a single 24 port switch installed in the closet, because most users will only need one network connection. All the cubicles aren't utilized yet so all 40 connections aren't needed and you don't have to purchase another 2 thousand dollar switch until it becomes necessary. So the only network ports in the cubicles that are active are the ones that correspond to the patch panel ports that are patched into the switch.

[gangaskan]

Understood.

If a managed gigabit switch connects to a router with Fast Ethernet LAN ports and Windows-running computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adapters, would Windows report the link speed at 100 Mbps but transfer between other computers on the switch at Gigabit Ethernet rate?.

I have sometimes seen a simple office network described using the term "patch panel". Is a "patch panel" generally a managed switch?

1.) if your switch is all Fast Eth then even if your router is gigabit or your uplink interfaces are gig it will still show 10/100 on the interface level (and in windows/ linux). now if you had gig uplinks (gigabit to gigabit on switch /router) you will only be able to jam more information from the 100 meg lines into that pipe. nothing more, you may see some of a speed increase, but you may not notice.

2.) as IMOG said, its a dumb panel, just meerly to clean wires up and quick disconnect cables its more for a termination than anything.

kind of look at it as a phone plugged into the RJ11 jack, if you have no service the phone will not spew out dial tone (or if it does, it will not ring out,etc...) thats what a patch panel is, its similar to the phone company that determines if you have service or not.

[zzzzzzzzzz]

I have been speaking with a Cisco Systems patner (also partnered with other brands) about hardware to acquire.

The person I spoke with made representations that the Cisco routers are effective for using another connected WAN when a WAN fails (link failover), but are not as good at balancing traffic on all connected WANs. Are those representations true?

The person had recommended I go with Peplink or Barracuda, stating that their routers can balance Internet connections and failover to working WAN Internet connections(www.barracudanetworks.com) for the router.

The Barracuda routers with link balancing seem to be:
http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/products/link_models.php

The Peplink routers with link balancing are described:
http://www.peplink.com/balance/tech-spec/

[SuperMiguel]

I have been speaking with a Cisco Systems patner (also partnered with other brands) about hardware to acquire.

The person I spoke with made representations that the Cisco routers are effective for using another connected WAN when a WAN fails (link failover), but are not as good at balancing traffic on all connected WANs. Are those representations true?

The person had recommended I go with Peplink or Barracuda, stating that their routers can balance Internet connections and failover to working WAN Internet connections(www.barracudanetworks.com) for the router.

The Barracuda routers with link balancing seem to be:
http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/products/link_models.php

The Peplink routers with link balancing are described:
http://www.peplink.com/balance/tech-spec/

what are you trying to acomplish??? why do you need to combine multiple internet connection?? give me one reason. and yes that person was right most of the time when you get 2 connections is in case one fails the other one takes place... but this is for companies that being with out internet for seconds will cost them alot of money.

[zzzzzzzzzz]

what are you trying to acomplish???I am attempting to provide my office users with quality Internet access without downtime.

why do you need to combine multiple internet connection?? give me one reason.I do not need to combine multiple Internet connections. I am interested in using more than one Internet connection to allow Internet access when, at most, one less than the number of Internet connections fails. It does not seem very efficient to me, however, that redundant Internet connections go unused when they may be utilized to enhance office Internet traffic throughput.

[Drew@PSU]

I would set up the router ( a 2811 for example ) to just make all 3 links equal cost to the next router...traffic should just jump onto the link that is least utilized. Maybe gangaskan will correct me, but I would imagine Cisco routers are more than capable of doing this. But if all you are looking to do is failover, any true router should be able to do that, after all, that's precisely what they were created for.
-Drew