Dual WAN Router Recommendations

[schew]

My local ISP has an interesting deal in which they bundle a 1Gps fiber connection with a 100 Mbps cable. Performance is pretty good and both connections can hit 80-90% of their stated bandwidth.

After spending sometime tweaking my Edgerouter Lite, I realized that hardware offloading is probably not working while in operating in dual WAN load balancing mode (if I'm doing something wrong, I'll be glad if someone could point it out). I'm getting terrible performance as the output had dropped to ~200 Mbps.

Thus starts my search for some new hardware. I noted the Zyxel Zywall 110 appears to be getting good reviews. However, I'm not seeing much benchmarks for it when operating in dual WAN model.

My question is if anyone knows I can get full throughput using a Zywall 110? If not, any recommendations?

Thanks!

 

[Cloud200]

My local ISP has an interesting deal in which they bundle a 1Gps fiber connection with a 100 Mbps cable. Performance is pretty good and both connections can hit 80-90% of their stated bandwidth.

After spending sometime tweaking my Edgerouter Lite, I realized that hardware offloading is probably not working while in operating in dual WAN load balancing mode (if I'm doing something wrong, I'll be glad if someone could point it out). I'm getting terrible performance as the output had dropped to ~200 Mbps.

Thus starts my search for some new hardware. I noted the Zyxel Zywall 110 appears to be getting good reviews. However, I'm not seeing much benchmarks for it when operating in dual WAN model.

My question is if anyone knows I can get full throughput using a Zywall 110? If not, any recommendations?

Thanks!

Did you try setting the connection to Failover/Failback with the Fiber as the primary and Cable as secondary?
Also, did you try posting your config in the UBNT EdgeMax forums asking for help there first?

 

[schew]

Well, I'm actually using the wizard to set it up and I'm using the cable as fallback. Can't post in the UBNT forums as the forum site somehow refuses to send me a verification email. Tried with two different email addresses. Guess user registration is broken

 

[Cloud200]

Well, I'm actually using the wizard to set it up and I'm using the cable as fallback. Can't post in the UBNT forums as the forum site somehow refuses to send me a verification email. Tried with two different email addresses. Guess user registration is broken

If you can backup the config I would be happy to post it for you there
2 ways:
log in via SSH and run the command
Show Configuration

press the space bar a few times until the entire config is visible
then copy and paste it into a code box here.

log into the web page and download the Backup Configuration.
If you don't know how to extract a tarball/gunzip file just attach the whole thing.
Else I just need the "config.boot" file

 

[schew]

Hi Cloud200., thank you so much for the offer. As of 20 minutes ago, I finally received the UBNT forum verification messages; all 10+ attempts of it. I'll try posting my configuration file there.

 

[schew]

So no alternative recommendations?

 

[Cloud200]

Well the Zyxel will do it as long as you set it to Failover/Failback, not load balance.
Other options that ought to work in the same price range;
Peplink Balance One
LinksysLRT224/CiscoRV320 (both use a nearly identical chipset. Look at the firmware/support as the major differentiation)
Mikrotik CCR1009
Mikrotik 1100AHx2
D-Link DSR-500/DSR-1000

The Ubiquiti ER-Pro I have in the office is dealing with roughly 1.7gbps of traffic across VLANs so it is still very odd to me that the ERlite is not handling it correctly.

 

[schew]

I bit the bullet and went for the MikroTik CCR1009. From what I read, it appears to have sufficient horsepower to support my near term needs (load balancing) and my future tinkering.

Now comes the part on learning to use it

 

[System Error Message]

There are a few ways to have multiple WANs on mikrotik routerboards.
You can have the same routes with equal cost(works for multiple PPP based connections that have the same IP address) or even multiple ports with the same IP address
You can use interface load balancing for certain types of connections (non PPP or vpn based)
You can use a biased firewall/que division based setup.
There may be more but these were what i was aware of/using since firmware V5.

Mikrotik routerboards are interesting in a sense that it doesnt restrict what you can do. Every port can be a WAN or LAN or both. With any routerboard for best results if you are performing NAT/firewall based routing you should have your WAN ports as ports that are directly connected to the CPU and not ports that go through the switch chip since it significantly reduces CPU load (4% vs 30% on the CCR1009 for 2Gb/s NAT). Using firewalls on CPU connected interfaces also helps to reduce the CPU load. Dont forget to do the usual firewall security configurations which examples you can find on the mikrotik wiki to protect your routerboard against bruteforce attempts and hacking attempts.

Refer to the block diagram of your mikrotik model on the routerboard product page to see how everything is connected. Dont forget to update your firmware to latest stable firmware (not release candidate or beta). The winbox utility can also connect to your routerboard via mac address of the connected port/bridge incase you mess up a configuration (it can scan for it).