bonded sdsl

wise · 4th March 2008

we're trying to upgrade a main site to 2MB sdsl (currently on 1mb and struggling). However we have been recommended to look at bonded sdsl

Anyone have any experience with this - does it work well with vpn etc?

we would have 7 sites linking into the sdsl via vpn with approx 30 users average connected over the vpn's at any one time (always at least 25 > 30 concurrent via different adsl sites).

Interested in knowing if this is a good product to look into and what routers / vpn routers you would have on the sdsl end.

andyb28 · 5th March 2008

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Provida · 5th March 2008

I've sold several bonded SDSLs, never had any complaints apart from 1 - BT didn't provide enough backhaul from the exchange to get the full 8Mbps from 4 x 2Mbps lines, they only had about 5.5Mbps available.

The provider needs to support MLPPP, you should be able to use your own kit if they allow that. A Cisco 1821 with 2 x WIC-1SHDSL cards is ideal.

Caveats:
1. Doesn't work so well with Citrix
2. Doesn't work with VoIP
Both of the above are based on field experience. VoIP shouldn't work too well with any bonded or load balanced connection on paper anyway.

If the budget is available I would seriously consider a 2Mbps leased line.

wise · 5th March 2008

thanks - the leased line is too pricey for the moment, hence looking into bonded.

All the external sites use terminal services - currently 2000 which we are upgradeing to server 2003 TS to hopefully improve things.

Would you say TS should work ok with bonded, I know above comment suggests citrix wouldnt...

Provida · 5th March 2008

That's a good question.

My gut feeling is that TS shouldn't if Citrix doesn't.

Since there are going to be multiple sessions you should look at a way of load balancing the connections, it will work better than bonding. Bonding is only really necessary when you need more bandwidth for a single TCP connection, e.g. file transfer.

I think there are various firewall appliances out there with some kind of connection balancing capability built in, but that's where my knowledge stops.

Jon-NC · 5th March 2008

I've had 20 users on a single 2mb SDSL line without any problems at all over TS. Citrix would do slightly more.

As suggested above it may be worth having 2 x SDSL lines and load balance connections at the head office side.

PeteK · 5th March 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Provida

I've sold several bonded SDSLs, never had any complaints apart from 1 - BT didn't provide enough backhaul from the exchange to get the full 8Mbps from 4 x 2Mbps lines, they only had about 5.5Mbps available.

The provider needs to support MLPPP, you should be able to use your own kit if they allow that. A Cisco 1821 with 2 x WIC-1SHDSL cards is ideal.

Caveats:
1. Doesn't work so well with Citrix
2. Doesn't work with VoIP
Both of the above are based on field experience. VoIP shouldn't work too well with any bonded or load balanced connection on paper anyway.

If the budget is available I would seriously consider a 2Mbps leased line.

Jake. What planet are you on today?! We have loads of customers using Citrix/RDP etc and voip. In fact one customer has his primary switching site on 4 x 512k sdsls and runs stacks of voip channels across it. It is no hassle and we don't charge your prices either ;-)

othellotech · 5th March 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon-NC

As suggested above it may be worth having 2 x SDSL lines and load balance connections at the head office side.

Load-balanced lines are (generally) useless for a lot of critical systems, they'd be better off using each line for a separate service, with a view for DR to manually decide.

We've setup bonded solutions for people who needed more outbound connectivity over ADSL - usually 2*2Mb and 4*2Mb. In practice that has often yielded no incoming bandwith improvement at all, but does on the outbound (on one site 4*2Mb, is getting 3down/1up - which will all be exchange capacity and contention issues.

My experience is similar to Jake's, things that dont work properly over bonded solutions
* VoIP
* Citrix/Terminal Services/RDP
* Eicon encryption services
* Some VPN solutions (IPSec seems fine)
* Sonicwall UTMs (never did find out exactly why)
* Anything using TLS

Switching to 2Mb SDSL would be the preferred next step rather than adding a 2nd 1Mb, Leased line would be even better.

PeteK · 5th March 2008

My experience is similar to Jake's, things that dont work properly over bonded solutions
* VoIP - Sorry cobblers
* Citrix/Terminal Services/RDP - cobblers too
* Eicon encryption services - no experience
* Some VPN solutions (IPSec seems fine) - they work fine so long as the tunnel supports 1500 un-fragmented MTU
* Sonicwall UTMs (never did find out exactly why) - no experience
* Anything using TLS - never tried will do later

All of the above is reliant on MLPPP or per packet LB, not per session.

Provida · 5th March 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteK

Jake. What planet are you on today?! We have loads of customers using Citrix/RDP etc and voip. In fact one customer has his primary switching site on 4 x 512k sdsls and runs stacks of voip channels across it. It is no hassle and we don't charge your prices either ;-)

I'm on Planet Real-World-Experience-With-MLPPP, Pete. I don't know what you're using for bonding, but my guess would be some kind of load balancing that will work with lots of VoIP and Citrix/RDP sessions, not multilink PPP.

You don't know what my prices are either. (Clue: look at company info to the left of this post and the signature below)

PeteK · 5th March 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Provida

I'm on Planet Real-World-Experience-With-MLPPP, Pete. I don't know what you're using for bonding, but my guess would be some kind of load balancing that will work with lots of VoIP and Citrix/RDP sessions, not multilink PPP.

You don't know what my prices are either. (Clue: look at company info to the left of this post and the signature below)

Ok, so you've "moved" house... Didn't spot that and yep obviously don't know what you are charging. I was referring to your predecessors pricing!

MLPPP Cisco to Cisco works absolutely fine with said list of apps. Some ppp VT config required but I can assure you it works with voip Citrix/RDP etc, and can happily provide any number of reference customers for anyone who cares.