I am not sure whether this is the right place to discuss this topic, but I will go ahead, and if it is not, then I will wait for notification.
Currently we are working on a Solution Case Study that we plan to approach Telecoms with. The solution we are exploring is providing a solution to Mobile Internet Service Providers (4G/LTE), where we plan to sell them Peplink FusionHub to be installed in their Network, and sell multiple 4G/LTE sims along with Peplink Load Balance 210/310 for customers who are looking for speeds exceeding what a single 4G/LTE can provide. So for the Mobile ISP the selling point is Bonded 4G/LTE services to their end customers. From our company, we want to profit by selling and maintaining Peplink solution. As for the Mobile ISP, we believe they may want to differentiate themselves in the market by providing this super fast Bonded 4G Internet access.
Some questions:
Q1: Have this same solution been implemented any where?
Q2: Will this make a good business case? Does the selected solution components (FusionHub and LoadBalance) meet the intended solution’s goals? (FusionHub should terminate SF connections coming from remote end-customer LB devices, then route them to the Internet).
Hi,
This seems to be a valid deployment, as you can found it from our website on FusionHub product page, as illustrate below.
However, please bear in mind that if you want to bond multiple embedded cellular 4G LTE connections, you should be looking at MAX HD series, instead of Balance 210/310 as these are wired WAN products.
Hope this helps, and your feedback is very welcome.
Thanks and regards.
Thank you Ming,
Of course MAX HD series is suitable for the mobile users, but the reason I mentioned LB210/310 is that the 4G/LTE connections are heavily used at homes as well. Otherwise, we should not limit end user with specific model.
Now regarding the referenced diagram which is on the FusionHub page: How will the Fusion Hub direct the remote traffic to Internet? As I understand it does not support static routes (unless my information is outdated). Or is it that we need to have other solution components part of the solution to realize this scenario?
Also, I forgot to ask about how is the expectation on performance for the typical case when using two 4G/LTE connections from the same provider? I recall I have read somewhere on Peplink site or here in the forums that this might introduce throughput issues as both the 4G/LTE will be taking feed from same base station.
Hi,
We suggest MAX HD series due to you mentioned “sell multiple 4G/LTE sims along with Peplink Load Balance 210/310”. Therefore MAX HD series is more suitable.
We do support route PepVPN traffics to LAN now. Please find the attached.
Cellular connection is bandwidth sharing basis. Please the attached for an example for the throughput you will get from same celullar tower. We have documented this in Partner Pavilion.
This “Route PepVPN traffic to LAN” option, I assume it is on the FusionHub, right? If answer is “Yes”, then there should be some type of default route defined on the LAN. I have checked the FusionHub Manual/Guide for this option as well as any routing option, but could not find any. Will you kindly refer me to any document that describes this scenario.
Hi,
Yes.
FusionHub user manual is mostly given used cases for certain deployment. You can enable Route PepVPN traffic to LAN if you have scenario below:-
Users at branch —> Balanace router —> SpeedFusion (Send all traffics to HQ) —> (WAN) FusionHub (LAN) —> Core switch —> Fiirewall —> Internet
Hope this help.
And what is the way used to further route the PepVPN traffic over the LAN: static routes or default gateway setting on the LAN Interface?
One more question regarding scalability and high availability: Can I install multiple Gigabit Ethernet NIC cards on the server (say Quad port) and combine them as a single interface to be used by the FusionHub as WAN and/or LAN?
Is Link aggregation supported (LACP for example), if I want to multihome the FusionHub server to different switches (for redundancy)?
What I am looking for is Telecom Grade solution.
Hi,
Once you enable Route PepVPN traffic to LAN, FusionHub will uses default route to route traffics to the gateway that specified in LAN interface.
Of course you can install multiple NIC on server. Please take note LACP is happen between Hypervisor (e.g. VMWare Esxi) and switch. FusionHub is transparent on this.
Thank you TK,
Somewhat the picture of the final solution setup is clearer, but I would need to have more information about FusionHub High Availability options. I understand that FusionHub High Availability stems from the Hypervisor support for High Availability.
I assume the best recommended Hypervisor for FusionHub is VmWare ESXi. A matter of fact I do not have much experience with VmWare ESXi high availability features, but from reading I found two features: Fault Tolerance (where you maintain two synced hosts running actively where one can replace the other in case it fails). The other feature is High Availability, where you can detect OS level and Application level failures to initiate an automatic failover to another host by restarting virtual machines on that new host. If my understanding is correct, then what we need for Telecom Grade solution on the High Availability aspect is the Fault Tolerance- Correct? (Sorry, I know it is out of the scope of Peplink products, but I think to make this thread complete I brought this part of the discussion here as it fits in the context hoping to get more feedback from the experts and community, and also hoping that in the near future we can see a Technical Document from Peplink highlighting aspects of this solution).
Another aspect of the solution I wanted to discuss is the ability to cluster multiple FusionHub instances and join them in a pool. This need is necessitated by the fact that remote Peplink Devices (i.e. Max HD) will have the IP address of the FusionHub hard coded and statically configured. I would like to see that a group of FusionHub instances joined as a pool and are having a single virtual IP address, and the node licenses is also pooled and floating ready for use by any new remote node (e.g. Max HD). Otherwise without this support, I imagine we will need to install multiple FusionHub instances and manage them individually by adding more instances as the client base grows and each instance is having its own license which makes it inflexible setup and difficult to manage.
Hi,
High Availability
The high availability of FusionHub should takes care by Hypervisor. Fyi VmWare ESXi is using V-Motion. Of course V-Motion not supported in the free edition. Yo may check with VMWare for more details.
FusionHub Clustering with single virtual IP
One of the selling point for FusionHub is Unlimited Scalability. You can run many FusionHubs as you need and manage them by InControl2. Since licenses are manage by InControl2, I believe this can help in your situation.
Hope this help.
Will you please elaborate more on this part of the solution! When I run multiple instances of FusionHub do I get a single Virtual IP address to configure the remote MAX HD to connect to? Also, node licenses managed in InControl2, will they be pooled together for use by the pooled instances of FusionHub? I appreciate more technical details on this part.
Hi,
We don’t support virtual IP for a pool of FusionHub instances. Sorry for confusing.
Each FusionHub instance still maintain it own license key, IP and unique for customer. Anyway you can manage the license keys via InControl2. Please find the attached screen shot from InControl2.
I have one more concern. Checking the FusionHub licensing options, the FusionHub 1000 supports 1000 SpeedFusion peers, but it only supports a throughput of 500Mbps (that is 0.5 Mbps per SF peer if fully loaded). If I want to target a throughput of 50Mbps per SF peer, then this license can only serve 500/50 = 10 SF peers, which makes the cost per SF peer extremely high. You see, the selling point of this solution scenario revolves around the Major Benefit of Bonding to achieve speeds not achievable by single 4G/LTE connections. What is your advice on this regard? I see that license cost of 100.00$ per SF peer is reasonable, but it should not restrict the throughput. I need your feedback and comment on this point
Hi,
Understood your concern. I think SpeedFusion Alliance is suitable for you. Please find here for more details.