Any Dual Wan Router Recommendations?

[ComputerRepairTech]

Looking for suggestions on an extremely reliable dual wan load balancing/failover router from people that either own one themselves or have constant polling going on for their client that uses one to see any weird issues that may have occurred.

I'm looking for something rock solid as if every time it has issues has a 15% chance for someone to lose their job.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

My favorite would be a linux based distro such as Untangle or PFSense. Of all the multi WAN routers I've used, I'll stay Untangle is the easiest to setup for it and it works very well. PFSense also works very well but there are more steps to do.

For an "out of the box" retail product, look at Peplinks routers. Of all the "out of the box retail" units I've worked with, I do like them the best for multi-WAN.

In about another 6 months I should be able to add Ubiquiti Unifi Gateway to this list, the multi WAN has improved but it's still slow in response, and last I played with it, still needed manual intervention to get WAN1 back online once service was restored. I know that feature is being improved in upcoming Unifi updates. (it might even had in the last 5.24 update.)

 

[Mick]

I don't think they're well-known on your side of the pond, but I've always found the Draytek range adequate to any tasks thrown at them.

 

[HCHTech]

Mid-range & higher Biz-class firewalls typically have this. I use Sonicwalls, but Watchguard, Fortinet & other choices are available. We have a TZ500 doing failover at one of our biggest clients. I test it once per month & we use ping testing in our monitoring software to alert when either WAN is down...it's been pretty bulletproof. We don't do load-balancing, though. There are whole separate boxes for that if you want to spend some money - that's way above my pay grade, though.

How stable is the main internet connection? How stable is the secondary? Different vendors I expect?

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

My favorite would be a linux based distro such as Untangle or PFSense. Of all the multi WAN routers I've used, I'll stay Untangle is the easiest to setup for it and it works very well. PFSense also works very well but there are more steps to do.

For an "out of the box" retail product, look at Peplinks routers. Of all the "out of the box retail" units I've worked with, I do like them the best for multi-WAN.

Untangle looks like it will have some additional subscriptions and fees for multi wan balance modules and such? May have to look into those options though, if I can get some really good QoS options by going that route it may be best.

Ive had the balance 20 and balance one peplink routers, balance 20 was fine but low throughput, the balance one has some strange behavior when attempting to re-establish connection to uverse thats currently having some issues, doesn't say its at max cpu usage when the problem occurs but sure does act like its struggling. I can't easily replicate it so shopping around for a different brand this time around. Unfortunately I got the balance one with the built in wifi, from what I understand this model does have some issues, i did disable the built in wifi but still every once in a blue moon it acts up.

I don't think they're well-known on your side of the pond, but I've always found the Draytek range adequate to any tasks thrown at them.

i'll have to look into those more, might need higher throughput.

How stable is the main internet connection? How stable is the secondary? Different vendors I expect?

Right now primary has brief outages maybe once every 2 months or so, backup had 4 in the last 30 days and its currently down now.
Edit: yes different vendors

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Untangle looks like it will have some additional subscriptions and fees for multi wan balance modules and such? May have to look into those options though, if I can get some really good QoS options by going that route it may be best.

It is a "pay for app"....just about all our clients on Untangle are on the "Complete" full packages. Good UTMs have a subscription, and the price for them is..well, typically pricey. Untangle is fairly affordable compared to other UTMs.

Their balancing and failover works very very well, it's quick and nearly if not usually undetectable to end users.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'm using Untangle right now to easily and smoothly migrate a client off of 2x DSL connections, to a nice fat cable pipe I have getting them via a Ubiquiti airMax connection from 3x blocks away. Untangles WAN balancer and failover modules make it so easy.

 

[marley1]

Meraki is where I'd go.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

@YeOldeStonecat you got any opinion on the Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite ERLITE-3

I think I may go ahead and start working on building a tiny low powered box and start messing with untangle or pfsense.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

We've used the EdgeRouters a lot, love 'em, VERY stable and fast..but I don't think I ever tried setting up dual WAN on those. Since the Unifi cousin line has matured substantially, we've switched over to the USG's(and pros) for new deploys.

I'm happy to do a remote 'n phone session with you to show you Untangle if you wish.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

We've used the EdgeRouters a lot, love 'em, VERY stable and fast..but I don't think I ever tried setting up dual WAN on those. Since the Unifi cousin line has matured substantially, we've switched over to the USG's(and pros) for new deploys.

I'm happy to do a remote 'n phone session with you to show you Untangle if you wish.

No thanks, whatever I decide on knowing me i'll sit there for days trying to learn every aspect of it xD I can play with this at home as much as I want with dual wan support for 50 dollars a year with the untangle at home feature? Whats your opinion on untangle QoS vs pfsense QoS?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Untangles QoS works very well as a general rule applied to all clients, and can get very granular as far as types of traffic.
Has a quotas feature also...can give someone a quote and once they reach it, you can drop their priority.
What I did like about PFSense was you had the ability to apply a penalty right away to a client..like throttle them right off the bat on an individual level.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

Untangles QoS works very well as a general rule applied to all clients, and can get very granular as far as types of traffic.
Has a quotas feature also...can give someone a quote and once they reach it, you can drop their priority.
What I did like about PFSense was you had the ability to apply a penalty right away to a client..like throttle them right off the bat on an individual level.

Do you remember tomato qos where you could specify different rules based on the amount of data transferred like this:

does both untangle and pfsense support that? that was one of my fav features.

Edit: I assumed by quotas you meant something more long term

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Do you remember tomato qos where you could specify different rules based on the amount of data transferred like this:

does both untangle and pfsense support that? that was one of my fav features.

Edit: I assumed by quotas you meant something more long term

I do remember Tomato..was my favorite 3rd party router distro for Stinksys routers....I ran my Cisco e3000 on Tomato for a loooong time at home.

Yes...Untangle has a similar feature in "quotas"..has several options but basically with quotas once a user/host reaches a certain about, you can put a choke on them.

I haven't explored this deeply, as it's not a feature typically utilized on a business network, with business networks generally we just try to prioritize certain types of traffic and keep things smooth 24x7. TBH I've never had to clamp down on an individual user. If a particular use "shows up on the radar" as abusing things..you produce reports to management and they handle it via computer use policy (and lecture).

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I forgot to put this link, "online demo of Untangle"..can go in and test drive around and poke around various nooks 'n crannies.

http://demo.untangle.com/admin/index.do

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

I think perhaps i've been spoiled by peplinks algorithms, neither untangle/pfsense have the ability to specify algorithms like these right? The new fastest response algorithm is something I enjoy.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I can't speak for PFSense for the past quite a few years as far as multi WAN (played with its multi wan in much earlier versions)..but I currently have quite a few Untangle setups out there on multi WAN and yes it's very mature in that aspect...you can get quite granular in how your configure multi WAN, traffic allocation, etc.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

I couldnt find a way to do an algorithm like fastest response time and untangle support says it cant be done but i'll probably install it anyway because i've already ordered the mini pc from china and the 600mbps throughput of the peplink balance one just isn't enough right now.

 

[SAFCasper]

Bit late to the party but if the connection is absolutely mission critical you should look into high availability or VRRP. This involves having 2 or more routers where one acts as the primary and the others are slave/hot-spare. If the primary fails another takes over.

Have a look at this webinar. About 6-7 minutes in there is a demo where they cut power to the primary router. Network goes down for about 10 seconds until the secondary kicks in and takes over.

The demo uses Draytek however Untangle is capable of the same feature. I'm not sure on their licencing though - if you need full licences both the hot-spare and the primary it could work out quite expensive.

EDIT:
Guess I should post that webinar link.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Untangle multi-wan modules are subscription based, but they are the most brain dead easy multi-wan on the shelf, and the best part about them IMHO is the fact that you the admin define via your own test what is "down". So there's no ambiguity, it does exactly what you say it's going to do.

Now, when you toss in VRRP and do a clustered Untangle configuration, things can get more than a bit confusing because VRRP needs an IP per interface per device, and then it also needs a shared address. It can get VERY fiddly and it wastes IP addresses. The trade however is once again SPEED. The fail over is almost instant.

As for the QoS, Untangle's QoS rack module is called Bandwidth Control. What isn't so apparent is that Bandwidth Control is a rack app, not a service app. Because it's a rack app you have have multiple QoS rule sets, with different configurations and use the policy manager to match traffic and move things around.

So you could for example, deprioritize youtube traffic for some users, while prioritizing it for others. I've not found another QoS implementation this flexible, allowing you to have priority access for power users regardless of what system they're on keyed to their AD logon. Or perhaps granting special consideration to the machine in the conference room.