Does SD-WAN support normal dual internet links without using VPN?

[Qing]

Hi, we have dual internet lines. Can use SD-WAN to configure dual internet lines in load balancing ? From meraki online document, it seems SD-WAN only support VPN only, not normal internet access. Anyone, please advise, thanks in advance.

[Qing]

sorry, forgot to mention that MX84 works in NAT mode. So can configure SD-WAN to load balance the traffic between two internet lines? 

[Brian_Krantz · Accepted solution]

Go to Uplink Selection under SD-WAN & Traffic Shaping.  Should be able to do it there.

[GreenMan]

That is indeed the place to configure SD-WAN rules.  Note that, for Internet traffic, only policy-based rules are currently available (not performance-based);   the VPN overlay (AutoVPN) is what provides the defined path for end-to-end monitoring used for performance-based rules applied to traffic traversing the VPN.   Load balancing of Internet-bound traffic can also be enabled, based upon the weighting of the bandwidths configured under the SD-WAN & traffic shaping uplink configuration of WAN 1 and WAN 2

[Warren]

You can enable it - but it may break somethings.  We found that load balancing created a ton of issues for VOIP, RDP and other types of traffic.  It worked fine for web traffic.  

If you setup in failover only mode, the first link has to be down for either 60 seconds or 300 seconds (can't remember) to fail over.  Not just a few packets.

[GreenMan]

Yes - it could be up to 300 secs  https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/Connection_Monitoring_for_WAN_Failo...

[Warren]

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@GreenMan wrote:

Yes - it could be up to 300 secs  https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/Connection_Monitoring_for_WAN_Failo...

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Other SD-WAN solutions failover on a packet by packet basis for comparison.

[GreenMan]

Can you expand, Warren - what do you mean by 'failover on a packet by packet basis' ?

[Warren]

Sure - upon reading it again though - the packet by packet solution works only when you have a device at both ends (i.e. site to site), doubtful it works on the internet. It works by sending the traffic on one link and forward error correction packets on the second. Then it puts the stream back together in the right order. They claim they can use the forward error correction packets as well on a single link. I've not tried it.

[Brian_Krantz]

Go to Uplink Selection under SD-WAN and Traffic Shaping.  Should be able to do it there.