Looking for a proper Dual WAN solution

[Lobo]

Hi there!

First, let me thank all of you for making this community such a great and knowledgeable place.

Lurking around and grabbing some info on how to set up my network finally led me to my first thread in order to get down to the nitty-gritty.

Due to a lack of reliable ISPs in my area, I'd like to use a laggy 10/4 Mb/s satellite connection together with my 4/1 Mb/s Pre-WIMAX link.

Of course, I don't expect bandwith to add up, my goal is rather to split up services, e.g. surfing the web via WIMAX while having my satellite link take care of mail traffic as well as large uploads/downloads. The latter connection is also supposed to handle all traffic in case WIMAX goes down, which happens quite often.

Having read quite a few mixed reviews on routers such as RV042/82/16, Netgear FVS336G and SRX5308 as well as several Drayteks and pfsense I'm still not sure which would be the best option for my network.

Thus, I'd be happy to hear any advice you may have as to a reliable solution which provides service-based load-balancing as well as a quick failover.

Thanks in advance,

Lobo

 

[GregN]

PFSense is a solution, has all the features you list. But you would have to build the hardware to host it, some find this daunting.

Others face with the same issue have gone with Draytek, and have been mostly happy.

 

[xpl1c1t]

This was recently released;

Dual WAN, all gigabit, firewall, load balancing, tons of tunneling options
70mbit/s firewall throughput
35mbit/s VPN throughput

$200 sounds great to me

D-Link DSR-500

 

[claykin]

This was recently released;

Dual WAN, all gigabit, firewall, load balancing, tons of tunneling options
70mbit/s firewall throughput
35mbit/s VPN throughput

$200 sounds great to me

D-Link DSR-500

Its Dlink. Surely half the features won't work correctly.

 

[Lobo]

PFSense is a solution, has all the features you list. But you would have to build the hardware to host it, some find this daunting.

Others face with the same issue have gone with Draytek, and have been mostly happy.

Thank you GregN, pfSense would be a great and scalable solution, but I just found out that failover does not support DHCP or PPPoE connections… which is a deal-breaker for me.

This was recently released;

Dual WAN, all gigabit, firewall, load balancing, tons of tunneling options
70mbit/s firewall throughput
35mbit/s VPN throughput

$200 sounds great to me

D-Link DSR-500

Thanks xpl1c1t, I didn't know that one and will check it out for sure, although—please don't get me wrong—claykin likely hit that nail dead center.

 

[stevech]

Cradlepoint - I use their routers professionally and personally. They support most all the 3G and 4G cellular modems. I use Verizon 3G EV-DO and 4G LTE.
Cradlepoint has WiMax modem support - but as you know, WiMax is a total marketing failure, so the service dead-ended and the choice of modems is limited.

Their routers do automatic fail-over to cellular, but last I checked, they don't automatically restore use of the ethernet WAN port - you must login and do so when you feel that the WAN is stable. They do also have a ping-check in the router to detect that the modem is not providing internet connectivity - and this is essential as sometimes modems say all is well but it isn't.

 

[claykin]

Zyxel USG50 or higher? I use them and they are close to bulletproof.

 

[Lobo]

Thanks stevech, I've never heard of that brand, but alternatives are always welcome. Not restoring ethernet WAN would be a big drawback, but maybe that is something to be solved in the future.

By the way, the aforementioned Dlink DSR-500 lacks outbound load balancing which is supposed to be resolved by a future firmware upgrade but that makes it a no-go for the time being.

@claykin: Zyxel rings a bell as a security device, but I'll make sure to check out their dual WAN features.

 

[claykin]

@claykin: Zyxel rings a bell as a security device, but I'll make sure to check out their dual WAN features.

I run several of their dual WAN USG solutions. A USG50, 100 and 2 x 200's. All work great. One of the USG200 is running 3 x WAN. The round robin and failover is helpful and reliable.

 

[Dennis Wood]

Lobo, I've got two used Draytek 2950G and an FVS336. pm if you're interested

 

[Lobo]

Dennis, thank you very much for your offer! Alas, shipping these devices to Europe might be a deal-breaker.

Maybe you'd be able to share your experience nonetheless?

N.B.: Puzzled by the pricing, I procured a TP-Link R470T+ last week and while I'm still testing it, it offers amazing capabilities considering the 50$ price tag. So far, it's working as expected.

 

[raleighthings]

PFSense is a solution, has all the features you list. But you would have to build the hardware to host it, some find this daunting.

There are a lot of pre-built PFSense options out there. I just installed one of these:
http://store.netgate.com/Netgate-m1n1wall-2D3-2D13-Black-P216C83.aspx

And am getting our full limit of 44/22 on it.

Biggest issue for me is just how small the thing is. I should have gotten another color just so I don't loose it in the rack.

But there are several vendors listed on pfsense.org which will supply fully built solutions at a variety of price points.

 

[bendsley]

Have you looked at Peplink by chance?

http://www.peplink.com/balance/

They seem like neat little appliances and I've heard some pretty good things about them.

 

[medusakeith]

PFSense is a solution, has all the features you list. But you would have to build the hardware to host it, some find this daunting.

Others face with the same issue have gone with Draytek, and have been mostly happy.

DrayTek's Vigor2920n is the most reliable Dual WAN router I'd ever owned, its WAN & VPN's failover/Loadbalance works fine especially for VoIP applications I'd done.

They recently added in US type 4G modem supporting such as VerizonWireless and ClearWire. Also other advanced networking management features either for the bandwidth control/management,

Go to the linkage and you'll find more: http://www.draytek.com/user/SupportFAQDetail.php?ID=2088