network Dual WAN Router setup

[hyde+]

I am leaning towards FVS336G, has anyone got suggestions/experience with these units.

For almost all of these dual wan routers, the reviews are grim, this is probably the only one with decent reviews.

I looked at Linksys, Ciscos, even Sonicwalls..

We are moving our offices to a new location and we will be getting two ISPs.

My set up will be ISP Router 1 and ISP Router 2 to FVS336G to JGS516 16 Port Switch to each workstation, plus I am planning to buy two access points for two ends of the office for wireless users. (Unless I can salvage some old Linksys WRT routers to act as access point, but I don't want laptop users to have problems accessing local network)

Suggestions & comments are appreciated.

[Japlabot]

What size office? What type of connections? is this for redundancy or another reason?

My order of preference of Dual WAN:

1. Most Billion ADSL2+ routers offer Dual-WAN (one 10/100/1000 switch port becomes a WAN port) for fallover between 10/100/1000 and ADSL, I find their units quite reliable and affordable for small business, if at lease one of these connections is ADSL. Pretty customisable with VLANs and so on for a SMB product.

2. OpenWRT routers, most can configure a switch port to WAN, similar to the Billion, but even more customisable in the same small footprint

3. A dedicated machine with multiple network interfaces running as a Linux Router, possibly pfSense would be the best bet.

4. Cisco gear

[grunger106]

Look a the Zyxel USG 50 (or a 200/300 depending on your size), or if you have a bit more cash a Cisco 1841.

Either will allow you to do dual WAN of any connection type - just plug in modems/WICs as required for you WAN type.

The USG is a breze to setup and does SSL+IPSec VPNs, LoadBalancing, Content filtering etc

The Cicso is more complex, but it is Cisco grade kit....

[S.P]

I purchased a FVS336G back in 2008. I used it for 1 month before removing it as it caused more trouble than it was worth. At the time the firmware was very buggy and firewall never worked properly. I've still got it sitting as a paper weight, but reading this has sort of given me an idea to try it out again, perhaps if there is new firmware too. Then again it is quite old...

I tried it the failover function which worked as stated, but it took too long to switch over. Also navigating the GUI was slow and sometimes it would crash if you navigated too fast. I also tried to split traffic, so HTTP via WAN1 and FTP via WAN2, work quite well actually. And from memory, setting up firewall rules were flakey and I never really undestood the logic behind it.

[lars77]

I'm also planning on setting up an office w/ dual WAN in the next month or so (in NY too coincidently), though I'm only looking to do WAN failover/failback. At the moment was probably going to get a Sonicwall & possibly pair it with a CradlePoint CBR450 to bridge a 3G/4G connection into it for failover. (Sonicwall does support some 3G/4G but it's a bit limited compared to CradlePoint's offering)

In the past I used Snapgear routers for dual WAN & they worked great. Of course later on McAfee bought them out & then killed off the entire product line, so it's not really an option anymore.

Not so sure on Netgear, haven't really liked their other stuff.

I'd be curious what you end up going with!

[remixedcat]

DDWRT, duct tape and pringles cans!

[hyde+]

Simon, the setup is 15 workstations, about 4-5 connected devices, one network printer

using 2 Channel T1 (3mbps/3mbps) running on a single WAN from ISP's router + DSL or Cable Connection at 10 to 15mbps down, probably 1-2mbps/up (waiting for this to be installed this week).

I thought I hit jackpot with Netgear FVS336G since it seemed like a perfect device...

Since this is for an office environment, I am going to need something reliable. I already have a DD-WRT router (an Asus router) but there wasn't an easy way to just switch it to a dual WAN setup. There are bunch of scripts to run, and to make changes we need to go back to scripts again. Maybe it is better in newer firmwares.

S.P, It looks like there are few versions of FVS336G. Gv1 and Gv2 http://support.netgear.com/app/products/family/a_id/13333

Amazon lists two different ones see below. One has worse reviews than other, I am not sure if there is a difference in hardware or firmware. You can try the newer firmware, some amazon reviews state that problems were resolved with newer firmware. But even a newer firmware will not fix hardware issues, if there is any.

Lars77,

I have been reading about and getting suggestions from few others to take a look at Peplink devices. Peplink 20 seem to be a good alternative (Pep 30 adds a 3rd WAN port)

ZyXEL ZyWALL USG50 - $234

Peplink 20 - $287

Netgear FVS336G-200NAS - $218

Netgear FVS336G-100NAS - $332

[dragon2611]

I'm using Mikrotik routerboards for my Multi-Wan setups.

For instance at home I have 2 DSL Isps at the moment, I tend to send traffic from my own machines onto 1 ISP and the the other traffic onto the other. But it can do Nth packet routing and such if you wished to load balance.

It's also possible to combine VPN tunneling and a remote server to Bond connections, but it tends to work best if each connection has simular speeds and latency, I wouldn't recommend it with 2 connection that had different latency as jittter will be a problem.

If you want to go down the pfSense route then depending on the kind of throughput you need something like a pcengines Alix might help if you don't want to run a full on PC.

[sc302 Veteran]

Barracuda link balancer. Expensive but does the job well

[hyde+]

Barracuda is very expensive, and the routerboards would mean another workstation, dedicated only for this purpose, and I am afraid would be less reliable. So workstation may not even work, it would probably need to be a server or PC with additional fans.

I am leaning towards peplink after reading more about it, it may even come with a gigabit LAN port if the reviews are accurate. Even if not, Gigabit switch will be enough.

The only thing that is worrying me is that web blocking is grayed out from the features in Peplink.

[manroweb]

Get a Zywall USG50, they are better than the peplink 20

[hyde+]

I am loking for something that has a straight forward and easy configuration. I read about Zywall USG50, and multiple reviews mentioned difficult management & configuration. This is the reason I passed on Sonicwall. I am not sure what part of the configuration is difficult, but if the simple options are easy to access, I can still consider it.

[grunger106]

I am loking for something that has a straight forward and easy configuration. I read about Zywall USG50, and multiple reviews mentioned difficult management & configuration. This is the reason I passed on Sonicwall. I am not sure what part of the configuration is difficult, but if the simple options are easy to access, I can still consider it.

I find the USG one of the easiest devices to setup + the documentation is good.

I'm not quite sure where the reviewers have a problem

But then I have setup a few....

[Japlabot]

I just came across this and thought of this thread

http://www.draytek.com.au/products.php?type=dv3200

It has 4x Gigabit WAN + USB Port for 3G/4G with auto load balance and failover across all 5 WAN ports.

[remixedcat]

You could roll your own PFSense box as well. Please look into that...

[Ravensky]

Get a Fortinet, router, 2 of their wireless WAN boxes and set them up however you wish. You can setup the Fortinet to load balance / failover your two ISP's on virtual lan ports off the router and you are golden! I have this exact setup at work and it's a beautiful thing.

[remixedcat]

has anyone here tried PFSense??

[hyde+]

Hi everyone, moving took forever, getting our first ISP, and then finally TWC installing our cable connection and we ordered ZyWall USG50 which is expected to arrive tomorrow. I will try setting it up tomorrow and report back. Thanks for all the suggestions.

PS: Broadview Networks service in New York City is terrible, avoid them if you can. Really not worth the cost they are charging.

[hyde+]

I find the USG one of the easiest devices to setup + the documentation is good.

I'm not quite sure where the reviewers have a problem

But then I have setup a few....

We bought USG50 and it is working very well, solid, not a lot of drops, and combines bandwith down (up, not so much, but it may be due to policies).

The only problem with USG50 is the VPN, it is very painful to setup VPN on this device, unless you pay for VPN client, even then it is still difficult.

Also firewall is extremely advenced with no way to make it "easy" but I guess it is a good thing for those who want complete control over their rules and setup.