Dual Broadband and Dual WAN

D

duard

Does anybody use dual broadband and dual WAN set-ups. If so what equipment are you using (routers, modems, switches) and what if any advice do you have regarding the implementation of this solution.
 
I am setting up a combination Cable/DSL broadband link hopefully for the added reliability of this over a single link connection.

TriPack reports using the hawking router anybody else have suggestions?


Thank You,

Duard
 
This issue has been discussed before. Try doing a search for more info.

To date, I haven't heard of anyone who has been completely successful with achieving immediate failover. Many people who have tried this set-up have had problems logging into thier brokerage software once the first connection is broken.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone that has such a set-up working perfectly.


Runningbear
 
Seems like a huge waste of money to me. Call your broker to close out positions on the rare occassion your broadband connection goes down.

If you wanted true bandwidth sharing you would need a fancy equalizing router that can cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

I think the cheapest solution would be use two network cards each one hooked into a different router from the different ISP and disable one adaptor while the other is working and if it goes down disable that one and enable the other one.

This certainly would not be instantanous but if you need to have more cheap at home networking equipment and more wires floating around it should suit you just nicely.
 
Quote from cmk:

Seems like a huge waste of money to me. Call your broker to close out positions on the rare occassion your broadband connection goes down.

If you wanted true bandwidth sharing you would need a fancy equalizing router that can cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

I think the cheapest solution would be use two network cards each one hooked into a different router from the different ISP and disable one adaptor while the other is working and if it goes down disable that one and enable the other one.

This certainly would not be instantanous but if you need to have more cheap at home networking equipment and more wires floating around it should suit you just nicely.
More...

Actually it will cost alot less money than the money I've given away on the multiple times I've had broadband failures. My area just got cable and they just got the bugs worked out but my DSL carrier (a large respected name--not cheap) has been at my office no less than 5 times and my connection still sucks.

So, it may seem expensive but broadband has gone down dramatically in price such that a dual connection is the same or less than 2 years ago prices.

Now, I'm trying to figure out the best dual wan set-up. The oints about seemless load balancing is interesting and I'll get it figured out.


Peace,


D.
 
Quote from Runningbear:

This issue has been discussed before. Try doing a search for more info.

To date, I haven't heard of anyone who has been completely successful with achieving immediate failover. Many people who have tried this set-up have had problems logging into thier brokerage software once the first connection is broken.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone that has such a set-up working perfectly.


Runningbear
More...


Noted. I'm just revisiting the issue as it is a rapidly evolving space and I'm hoping the bugs have been worked out. Trying not to reinvent the wheel so to speak.


D.
 
Duard, I am in the exact same position as you my friend. I've been using DSL, and I have had disconnects almost daily. While I have been able to reconnect, it takes at least a minute. I have not lost any money due to it, but it makes me nervous about putting on a trade. I had cable installed on Friday, and ordered the Hawking Dual WAN router.

I read on epinions that the Hawking Router does not work in load balance mode. The writer did report success with failover mode. That's what I'm going to use; I don't need load balancing. Even if the connection is broken with my broker, being able to log back in immediately is crucial. That only takes me about 10 seconds.
 
Hi Farside. I just read the review on epinions on the hawking dual wan router. I think this is it so I will paste it below so others here can see the criticisms:

http://www.epinions.com/content_158196272772

H2BR4 Marginal Performer
Oct 12 '04

Author's Product Rating
Product Rating: 3.0

Ease of Installation:
Ease of Use:

Pros
Inexpensive, easy setup, configuration and firmware upgrade. Potential for great Internet experience.

Cons
Works favorably only in failover mode, drops connections during downloads, slow to resolve addresses

The Bottom Line
For the price it's worth the investment to have a redundant Internet connection. Hawking needs to work out the bonding of both WAN lines a little better though.

Full Review
Just purchased (October 2004) and installed the Hawking H2BR4 Dual Wan Firewall Router. First, the price was more than reasonable at MicroCenter ($47.00 tax) and installation went smoothly. Unfortunately the performance using both WAN ports is a bit rough. Even after upgrading the firmware to v. 1.26 (Sept04 release) it constantly looses connection to Internet sites (especially during downloads) and is slow to resolve addresses. My installation uses a DSL (1.5 Mb) and a Cable Modem (about 3.7 Mb) connection. My expectations were the simultaneous use of both connections for added bandwidth, Not... It switches between the connections on the fly but looses connection threads during the process. It is actually slower than using only one of the connections at a time. So I put in failover mode (only switches to the other connection when the primary (cable) connection fails. This seems to be working fine (so far). The firewall functions lack a "true stealth" rating (SheildUp test at www.grc.com) but does show all ports closed. All in all it's not bad, but could certainly use some improvement. Perhaps in the next firmware release or model upgrade. Summary: If you’re looking for failover protection with two dedicated Internet connections you certainly can't beat the price. But if you're looking for true bandwidth bonding, this isn't the one.

Recommended
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 47
More...

First I think the review may be out of date. The firmware version mentioned in the review is 1.26, while my firmware version is 1.32. I'm not sure what fixes have been put in place since Oct 2004 but I have been running my router in load balancing mode. The load balancing is done on a new connection basis not during an open connection as the review states. This may have been due to a firmware upgrade or maybe a misperception on the part of the reviewer. On my system, load balancing seems to be working correctly. However, I don't really know how to do a thorough test to see whether it is giving me a performance boost or penalty. I have a 60/40 ratio between the two connections and I see in my status page that both WAN1 and WAN2 are being utilized so I suppose load balancing is working. At least I know I can run the router in this mode without problems since I implemented a few workarounds.

With regards to the shields up test, I just ran it twice, and it coincidentally ran for both WAN connections and it came up stealth both times. I disabled zonealarm and still got stealth so I don't think zonealarm was helping to make it stealth. So this is an improvement in the router since the review.

I will agree that the resolving of addresses seems a tad slow. This may have to do with my workaround of manually inputting the DNS addresses of primary WAN1 DNS and primary WAN2 DNS in the Primary and secondary DNS address respectively.

Here is a link to the workarounds I've implemented to get the Hawking dual wan router working to my expectations:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=762290#post762290

Note: some of the workarounds might not be necessary, but for me the DNS workaround was crucial, and now that I have it working as I like I don't want to muck around with it any more lest I screw something up.
 
Here is a review from last year comparing a # of the models mentioned above. I have tried an older Zincom which did not work well.

http://www.networkingsmallbusiness.com/reviews/2004/0913rev.html

It concludes that only the SonicWall, which is expensive, handles the switchover flawlessly.

"....Handling the dual-WAN connection worked well on the (sonicwall)TZ 170. Unlike all other units we tested, the TZ 170 picked up and continued to stream audio files when we disconnected the cable modem and forced the unit to switch to the DSl connection. It also switched to the faster service when we re-connected, again without interruption...."
 
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