* Testing a router for small and midsize branch offices
In the history of the telecommunications industry, having new applications appear without warning and wreak havoc with network traffic planning is relatively commonplace. For example, e-mail consumed relatively little bandwidth and had only minimal effect on network performance until people suddenly started sending send group e-mails with attached Word, Excel and PowerPoint files consisting of a few megabytes each.
A couple of weeks ago, we discussed the recent introduction of routers for small and midsize branch offices that incorporate support for dual Ethernet WAN interfaces (see first editorial link below). The most obvious application for these devices is to use both DSL and cable services for additional throughput and, more importantly, for added reliability since DSL and cable tend to use separate physical infrastructures.
We recently began testing of one of these devices on a network that uses both cable and DSL. Both services are attached simultaneously to the router. Since our testing is not exhaustive and is still in progress, we’ll not mention the manufacturer at this point. But here are our first impressions:
1) Installation was unremarkable. Every product is a little different, so you have to find the right screens, but we were up and running in less than half an hour. Procedures such as cloning the MAC address to keep the DSL service happy were straightforward.
2) These kinds of products seem to have two modes: load-balancing, in which both links are used constantly, and fail-over, in which the secondary link is active only when needed. Load-balancing mode seems to make the most sense because there’s no need to have bandwidth standing by if it’s available otherwise.
3) The product seemed to work quite well in fail-over mode. We tried unplugging each link (to simulate failure), and the traffic rerouted rather seamlessly to the other link. This isn’t to say that a given session did or did not have to be restarted, but at least the fundamental connectivity remained intact.
So the first report is that the product “worked.” But not without glitches. We’ll address some of these and some caveats when we return to your inbox the first week of the new year.
