Pepwave MAX-HD2 High Availability Setup with Peplink Balance 30 LTE

[pglover19]

Is it possible to setup high availability between a Pepwave MAX-HD2 device and a Peplink Balance 30 LTE? If yes, please explain the detail setup process if you have only 1 WAN connection coming in (1 ISP provider) that needs to feed both devices (HD2 and Balance 30 LTE).

FYI… My cable modem only has 1 WAN port.

[mldowling]

Hello @pglover19,
HA (High Availability) is only available with specific models and the models must be matching for it to work.
What are your main reasons for wanting HA, there may be another way to achieve something similar for you.
Have a look at this previous post as there is already an extensive conversation about this topic

Configuring 1+1 Backup by High Availability (HA)

1+1 Backup requires a pair of Peplink Balance devices or MAX 700/HD, operating in active-standby mode. When the master device is down, the slave device takes over and handles all the LAN traffic. Peplink Balance 210 or above, MAX 700/HD support High Availability (HA) failover between two Balance/MAX devices based on Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). Periodic VRRP advertisement packets are sent out from the master device to VRRP-specific IP multicast addresses. The slave device assumes …

Happy to Help,
Marcus

[pglover19]

Currently I have a Max-HD2 and recently purchased a Balance 30 LTE. The Max-HD2 unit is my master and the goal is to have automatic failover to the Balance 30 unit in a master/slave configuration. If automatic failover is impossible, maybe I have a manual failover setup. Please explain what my options are.

[mldowling]

Hello @pglover19,
This post where you create and active active failover setup from @Steve.Taylor may be your best option where he uses VLANs and the available WAN & LAN ports.

Pepwave Max Active / Active

Here is a document to demonstrate how to setup 2 Max devices in an Active / Active pair to combine their total connections. The document shows the step-by-step setup for 2 x BR1’s, with guidance for 2 x HD2’s and 2 x HD4’s. On the LAN side of each device you would either have Access Points or a switch with Access Points connected. The recommendation is that each AP from both devices would have the same SSID’s / Password, with the latest 3.6.0 firmware on the AP’s you can enable the setting to…

Have a read over this and let us know if it fits, you can do something like this between differing models of Peplink/Pepwave models.
Happy to Help,
Marcus

[pglover19]

How does the Balance 30 compare to the MAX-HD2 from a specifications point of view? If the specs are similar, maybe the most economical route is to purchase another Balance 30 to take advantage of the HA capability.

In addition, is the WAN port on the Balance 30 1000mbps?

[ProjektIP]

Hello,

we are planning two devices to be in HA: Balance 380 and Balance 30 LTE Pro.

We did some Lab tests, where WAN1 and WAN2 are attached to the same ISP providers on both devices. But Balance 30 LTE pro has LTE as well (as 3rd backup).

What currently works fine:
-if WAN1 and WAN2 are physicall “disconnected” from Balance 380, then failover to Balance 30 LTE works fine
-if WAN1 and WAN2 are still connected, but marked as “red” (via HealtCheck), then failover is not done. In this case we’d like failover to happen, so that LTE port can be enabled.

Do you have any solution for that?

Best regards,

Gregor

[mldowling]

Hello @ProjektIP,
The way we do this with our clients is to always leave the cellular modem with the same failover priority as the physical connections. We then manage the failover & recovery using outbound policies. We have found this to work better for a lot of our clients, especially with SIP/VoIP. You will need to have something like a FusionHub at another location with SIP/VoIP to have the best outcome. For general web access, you do not need the FusionHub, and you can create your outbound policies to work this lesser requirement.
Note: The WAN Failure conditions are still required to be set up within the WAN profile for each connection.
Happy to Help,
Marcus