Any ideas for a router?

A

abjater

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Hoping someone can give some suggestion to what you are using in a similar situation. I need to identify the correct router that will do the job, without costing me a small fortune.

SITE A: main site with all the servers and systems
SITE B: branch office without anything besides the humans :twisted:
LINK: 5gig wireless network linking the whole lot together.
PROBLEM: dear old Eskom can fail, or lightning pays a surprise visit at any of the wireless high sites.
RESULT: Network down. Site B sits and do nothing while repairs are taking place.

IDEA: Install ADSL both sides on highest possible speed. Implement VPN over DSL on the routers to link Site B to Site A. Yes it will be much slower than the current 130 megabit link, but rather slow, than no link at all.

HELP needed: What router must I look at that will be able to do this, what price range? Think about the current network as one big network, no funny routing, subnetting or anything. Router at Site B needs to be intelligent enough to detect it has lost connectivity with Site A (since it cant ping the other side on LAN port 1 which is the wireless network) ... now it must activate the VPN link to Site B, negotiate with a similar device at Site A, and route ALL of Site B's traffic via VPN to Site A.

Share some thoughts please. I'm sure the collective has faced similar problems before and you might have built an solution that works perfect. Trying to keep the implementation cost low, and not wanting to go Diginet/ATM or similar.

Thanks!
 
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I don't really have much experience with this but you could always look at just using an old pc as a router and chuck pfsense on it. Might do the trick.
 
It might work yes .... but I'm trying to keep away from host/PC based solutions, as its just another thing that can fail (someone needed a plug to charge a cell phone and the box is down). I'm sure it will work tho!
 
abjater said:
It might work yes .... but I'm trying to keep away from host/PC based solutions, as its just another thing that can fail (someone needed a plug to charge a cell phone and the box is down). I'm sure it will work tho!
Click to expand...

Well, not much different to a router. Just plug it in to the UPS.
 
Get surge and lighting protection for your equipment, as well as decent battery backup. There is no real "cheap" solution, but this is the most logical, the simplest, and probably the cheapest of all the solutions in the long run. Remember that your ADSL line and attached router are just as much at risk as the wireless equipment to lighting and surges, if not more. So sorting this out should be your first priority.

Spending on 2 ADSL lines on each side will cost you a minimum of
- R165 - voice line rental
- R413 - 4-10mbps ADSL line rental
- business class data - anywhere between R500 (capped) to R3000 (uncapped)

So you will easily spend over a R1k per line per month. That's about R24k per year, excluding equipment costs (modem and/or router).

Now a 3KVA rack-mountable Mecer UPS will cover you for at least 2 hours, and costs about R6k incl. a network card to connect it to a server, for monitoring and sending out email alerts related to power issues. Multiply by 2, one for each end. That's R12k once-off. Include surge and lighting protection at either end - let's go expensive and say R1k for each side. That brings your total cost to R14k. This makes much more sense than investing in a slow 4-10mbps ADSL line, of which the uplink speed will be a max of 1mbps (if you're lucky enough to be syncing at the highest speed on a stable line with good quality copper).

Hope this helps to make your decision easier.
 
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I agree with you guys in above posts, but adding UPS and additional lightning protection wont always be the solution due to circumstances etc with the network and system as is at present.

Suggestions:
MikroTik routerboard,
Tenda Dual WAN router
Something else ?
 
If you wish to go the ADSL>VPN route, I would suggest using Mikrotik.

You could use an RB-750 on each side of your network that will provide all the VPN and other routing capabilities. You can also write scripts to it, to route your traffic automatically if your wireless link fails.

http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/product_info.php?products_id=863
 
Greetings Scoop!

I did actually look at that model when doing my research last night. No ETA on the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter yet?
Your feelings about the Tenda Dual WAN?
 
We will be receiving Edge Router Lite 3 Port sometime during the course of next week. Looking forward to testing them once they arrive :)

Please feel free to place a back order and one of our sales consultants will contact you when they arrive.

We keep stock of the Tenda Dual WAN router as a simplified solution for clients that do not have any experience with Mikrotik. Purchasing an RB-750 is more cost effective and can provide more for your network than TEI480T+ as there are fewer limitations.
 
Site A to B = 49km. Running 3 high sites, of which one is a own tower in the vlaktes (as repeater), where reliable power is sometimes an issue.
 
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