Aggregate WAN's Bandwidth

If you have multiple WAN links, bandwidth aggregation can be achieved by Session-Based Load Balancing. Vigor Router offers two modes for WAN Load Balancing, IP-Based is the default configuration. It divides traffic by IP address, which means all the sessions will take the same WAN interface as long as the source IP/port and destination IP/port are the same.

And Session-Based divides the traffic by session. In the Session-Based mode, the router will distribute the sessions among WAN links, even though they are from the same connection, so the maximum bandwidth it can get will be the combination of all the active WAN.

To use Session-Based Load Balancing, go to WAN >> General Setup, and select "Session Based" for Load Balance Mode

In summary, IP-based mode balances the connections between WANs, while one connection will use only one WAN interface, the maximum throughput is limited by each WAN's bandwidth. On the other hand, Session-based mode combines the bandwidth of multiple WANs and brings higher speed, which is suitable for FTP, HTTP, etc.

However, note that when in Session-Based mode, a connection might be coming from multiple source IP, and servers with a high level of security e.g,.Bank Websites might reject this.

Then we can define protocols to be excluded from the load balance in Advanced, there are also some pre-defined services which can be source IP sensitive.

The other solution for this will be creating a Route Policy to use a specific WAN interface if the destinations are those servers.Visit Designate a Outgoing WAN for Traffic to a Certain Website for the instructions.

To use Session-Based Load Balancing, go to Routing >> Default Route, and select "Session Based" for Load Balance Mode

a screenshot of Vigor3900

In summary, IP-based mode balances the connections between WANs, while one connection will use only one WAN interface, the maximum throughput is limited by each WAN's bandwidth. On the other hand, Session-based mode combines the bandwidth of multiple WANs and brings higher speed, which is suitable for FTP, HTTP, etc.

However, note that when in Session-Based mode, a connection might be coming from multiple source IP, and servers with a high level of security e.g,.Bank Websites might reject this. The solution for this will be creating a Route Policy to use a specific WAN interface if the destinations are those servers. (Visit Designate a Outgoing WAN for Traffic to a Certain Website for the instructions.)

Published On: Nov 05, 2016

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