* Edimax PermaLink devices are impressive in terms of features per dollar
If you are running a Web server for commercial purposes such as selling stuff or supporting a business critical process you know that load balancing and failover are essential components of your service system but most hardware-based load balancing and failover solutions are expensive.
For smaller installations, an affordable solution is offered by Edimax Technology (see editorial links below). The PermaLink PRI-682 (a two WAN port model) and the PermaLink PRI-684 (four WAN ports) have a built-in DNS server for inbound load balancing. They also support both inbound and outbound load balancing and WAN port failover; allow the choice of session, weighted round robin, or traffic type dependent algorithms for outbound load balancing; support QoS control, and provide e-mail alerts on critical conditions.
Edimax claims that using the four WAN port PermaLink PRI-684 with four DSL or cable connections rated at an upload speed of 384M bit/sec each you’ll get an upload bandwidth comparable to a T-1 line. The company also notes that mixing DSL, cable, satellite, and T-1 or fractional T-1 lines will provide a truly fault tolerant configuration.
A PermaLink device can be configured to operate as a gateway, a router, or as a NAT mode supporting up to 5,000 clients. There is also support for multi-homing, Dynamic DNS, and a firewall is included.
A look through the product manuals will show you just how ambitious these products are. In terms of features per dollar, these devices are impressive. Not so impressive are the endless misspellings and poor translations on the Web site and in the documentation. I should also note that PermaLink was not such a good product name choice as it is also the name for a permanent link to a blog entry or other Web content (a Google search for the word results in 25,200,000 hits).
The PermaLink PRI-682 is priced at $699 and the PermaLink PRI-684 at $899.
