Connect two Internet ISP to Meraki MX75

[Roey1984]

Hey

We just purchased the Meraki MX75; It will be connected to 2 ISP`s (for redundancy)

What is the best practice in achieving the best redundancy?

Our office contains approx 60 users at most  (Will use VOIP \ AWS etc,) - no internal Servers, all is SaaS.

My plan was the following:

Primary ISP --> 500/500 Mbps line - will be connected to the MX via SFP (fiber)  -Port 1

Secondary ISP --> 200/5 MBPS line - will be connected to the MX via RJ45 cable  -Port 2

Does it make sense? Will it be active \ passive?

Or is it preferred to connect both ISP to the MX via RJ45   (Port 2 & 3)

Any advice would be helpful

Thank you!

[AjitKumar · Accepted solution]

Hi @Roey1984 

Congratulations on the New Firewall 😊.

I understand your connectivity plan is good and should work fine.

You can use both ISP's together. You may use the links in Active/Active or Active/Passive. You will find traffic load balancing options available in the dashboard.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/MX_Load_Balancing_and_Flow_Preferen...

[Roey1984]

Thank you AjitKumar!

Is there any preference to use a single Fiber optic cable & a single RJ45  cable? over TWO RJ45 cables? 

[KarstenI]

As @AjitKumar already mentioned, this setup is fine. Regarding the choice of Fiber or Copper, I would use what the ISP delivers natively. If the ISP gibes you a finer connection, use it. For Copper you would need an additional media converter. If the ISP equipment lets you choose Fiber or copper, I would probably choose copper as that can not be damaged that easily (this is only my experience, others will have a different opinion on this).

One more thing to consider is the Backup link. If the primary ISP fails, the 5 MBit uplink speed of ISP2 will just not work for 60 users in a SaaS environment.

[Roey1984]

I understand, KarstenI 

What is your suggestion in terms of the Backup link?

I just did a double-check, and we currently have a Primary ISP --> 200/200 Mbps line

as for the Secondary ISP that I will take, what are your suggestions if I want it to be Active Active?

a 100/50 line would be sufficient?

Thank you!

[KarstenI]

That is very hard to tell. One Customers of your size with a Cloud-only approach has a 50/50 Backup link. When the primary 200/200 fails, this link is completely saturated and the users are limited in their work-performance. But at least they still can work.

[Roey1984]

Understood

Thank you for everything!

😊