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Dual-Wan routers for ISP failover and loadbalancing
We are working on a project to implement ISP failover and loadbalancing for a corporate office. So far, we have looked over some hardware solutions but also software linux based ones. VPN is not a must, but it would be nice to have it also on the same device. Here are the best choices we looked so far:
A. Hardware solutions:
1. PePLink Balance 20L/200/300
2. Netgear FVX538
3. Linksys RV042/RV082
4. Xincom Twin WAN Router XC-DPG502
5. ZyXEL ZyWALL 35 UTM
B. Software solutions:
1. Vyatta: http://www.vyatta.org/
2. Endian: http://www.endian.com/en/community/
If you have a better experience on this we would love to hear your suggestions or previous experiences with such devices and your opinion on what is the best way to implement ISP failover and loadbalancing.
Tags: failover, load_balancing, router
4th November 2008, 12:15
How about the Firebrick
http://www.firebrick.co.uk
4th November 2008, 12:23
@Alastair Battrick: Firebrick seems to support only one WAN port. Or?
4th November 2008, 13:44
Any machine with Linux and vrrpd/ucarp? I would look at this option first.
4th November 2008, 13:50
ZyXEL ZyWALL 35 UTM works great, we use one here and it works as expected. (be carful when upgrading firmware, last update brick the device, and i had to hard reset it)
4th November 2008, 14:03
I use Juniper Netscreen SSG5s for my end-point solutions, but I’ve also had tremendous success with the Netgear FVS336G, which provides IPSEC ***AND*** SSL VPNs. My users adored me the day we started phasing out the need for buggy client VPN software.
4th November 2008, 14:57
@Matt: do you know if the Netgear device will detect a failures on the WAN link if running in “Load Balancing” mode? as this is not clear in the documentation and only for Auto-Rollover it seems to check the active connection.
Thanks,
- Marius -
4th November 2008, 15:24
I have been using the Peplink balance 300 for over a year now. The device is just rock solid. No reboots, no corrupt firmware, and it has extremely granular controls over the inbound and outbound traffic. This may be a little pricier than other solutions, but as usual, you get what you pay for.
4th November 2008, 15:53
@Marius
According to the help text for that configuration, you should be ok. Here is the direct quote:
“When the router is configured in Load Balancing Mode, it checks the connection of both the links at regular intervals to detect its status. “
4th November 2008, 16:58
The Xincom Twin WAN Router XC-DPG502 and other routers by Xincom are junk. I had 3 of them deployed to branch offices, and have had nothing but problems.
4th November 2008, 19:16
Two other options are m0n0wall and pfSense, the latter being my preference.
4th November 2008, 19:23
You may want to look at the MBR1000 by CradlePoint. It uses a failover to 3G Cellular. A primary ISP, cable, DSL, etc., come is with several ports for USB or ExpressCard modems. If the primary ISP goes down the 3G Cellular modems take over automatically, when the Primary ISP comes back up the unit failsback. Also does loadbalancing.
4th November 2008, 19:35
@Matt: thank you! that’s good to know. The docs don’t explain that very well.
@Don: thanks for your suggestion, but we need this to loadbalance also the traffic not only to failover.
5th November 2008, 00:59
How about a low cost DDWRT device? There are plenty of forum posts on setting up dual WAN connectivity, and it would be cheaper then building a linux box for it. It’s definitely the cheap way out so it may not be ideal for a company, but it’s worth looking in to.
6th November 2008, 19:51
Thank you all for your suggestions and comments on this! We have decided to order a Netgear FVS336G (thanks Matt for your insights on this) because it has also a good VPN solution. Even if I would have loved to work on a PePLink Balance device the fact that it has no VPN server and we had to get another box for this was a big disadvantage after all. Hopefully this was a good decision and I promise I will post a review of the Netgear FVS336G after we have it running for a while.
Thanks,
- Marius -
6th November 2008, 20:00
@Marius
Glad I could help. I’m really looking forward to hearing what you think of it.