MultiWAN: 2 Active + 1 Backup uplinks

[ShawnHu]

Supporting more than two functional uplinks on the MX platform has been asked for a while. We are happy to share that MultiWAN is supported on MX75, MX85, MX95, and MX105 with MX18.2 or higher firmware required. This iteration of MultiWAN support enables a third link as a backup link which remains in standby mode until both primary and secondary uplinks are down.

The demo resource is available on Meraki Launchpad🚀 for Cisco partners.

Demo network/page: Datacenter-SA and Sydney

This screenshot from the demo environment shows the third uplink takes over when both primary and secondary uplinks fail. We are scheduling a daily event to simulate this failover behavior.

For more details about this feature, please refer to the MultiWAN Backup Uplink documentation.

 

[PhilipDAth]

This is great.  A much asked for feature over the years.

[ShawnHu]

Indeed! I also look forward to the future iterations. 

[krisaraujo]

two questions: Is MultiWAN backup link supported in MX-250 and MX-450 appliances ?  

[ShawnHu]

Unfortunately the answer is no. Those two models are limited by the hardware capacity/capability to support this feature.

[krisaraujo]

ShawnHu,

Thanks for your information.

Before posting the question in the Meraki community I asked ChatGPT and the received the following question.

When I got your answer I felt suprised. Please the ChatGPT output including the attached .png file.

📌 Cisco Meraki MX250: Load Balancing Among Three WAN Links

The Cisco Meraki MX250 supports load balancing, but by default, it has only two dedicated WAN interfaces (WAN1 & WAN2). However, you can enable a third WAN interface by converting a LAN port into WAN3 and then distribute traffic among all three links.

🔹 How to Enable Load Balancing Across Three WAN Links

1️⃣ Enable a Third WAN Interface (WAN3)

• By default, MX250 has WAN1 & WAN2.
• You can convert a LAN port (e.g., LAN4) into WAN3 in the Meraki Dashboard.

📌 Steps to enable WAN3:

1. Go to → Security & SD-WAN → Appliance Status
2. Click → Uplink Configuration
3. Change LAN4 (or another LAN port) to WAN3
4. Save & Apply

Now, the MX250 has three WAN uplinks (WAN1, WAN2, WAN3).

[PhilipDAth]

ChatGPT is wrong.  Here is the official documentation listing the requirements and supported models.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/MultiWAN_Backup_Uplink#Prerequisites

[PhilipDAth]

Here is a screenshot from the Uplink tab on an actual MX250.  The options simply don't exist.

[ShawnHu]

Well, hallucination is one of the common drawbacks of modern LLMs like ChatGPT. It depends on your prompt. I just tested this with free version of ChatGPT and I got a different answer. (BTW, it was a typo that I mis-spelled MX105 but ChatGPT got it.)

I would say anything serious please refer to the https://documentation.meraki.com/ or leverage the knowledge from our great community. Kudos to @PhilipDAth !

[Denny]

Dear Sirs
Can you confirm me that the WAN 3 (Backup link) can be used only in cellular mode? Our customer would you like to be implemented the backup link with Starlink (not cellular ) Thanks a lot

[ShawnHu]

@Denny 

No, this MultiWAN Backup Uplink(with support MX hardware) doesnt limit to cellular and it should be infrastructure/technology agnostic as long as your backup uplink has Internet . The followings are the common use cases of it. 

Use case

• Third Internet link as backup: Configuration of a tertiary link to serve as backup in case the primary and secondary links fail.

• Meraki Cellular Gateway MG as wireless WAN backup: Connecting an MG for wireless WAN backup use cases without sacrificing a hardwired connection.