MEraki Mx for connecting WAN

[BS]

Hi All,

I've a specific requirement here.

I do have a traditional WAN today with MPLS and Internet is centralized. I would like to select One branch remove the existing router and connect an MX device. I will configure the existing MPLS on MX device.

Also, planning to introduce 1 extra Internet circuit at the branch to enable branch level Internet breakout. I wont be configuring a site to site VPN or Auto VPN.

Purpose of this scenario is to test if I can divert all my Internet traffic through the new Internet circuit and reduce the load on MPLS. I'm unable to arrange new circuits for SD-WAN testing also cant change the existing hub router at DC.

1. is the MX work like a router ? is there any limitations in the configurations?

2. The above scenario wont be a true SD-WAN, at least I will be able to see what is the load on my traditional MPLS link once I do branch level breakout.  Without auto VPN etc.. will it work?

Regards

B

[PhilipDAth · Accepted solution]

You will need to configure the MPLS circuit as a VLAN on the MX (via the LAN ports).  The internal LAN will need to be another VLAN.  You can make both of these use access ports to hide the VLAN tags being used.  You will need to add static routes via the MPLS network for the remote MPLS systems that need to be accessed.

You must used an Internet circuit in this scenario so the MX can talk to the cloud.  Everything that is not a static route you have added (above) or a locally connected Internet will go out the Internet circuit.

[DennisS]

This sounds similar to what I'm trying to test between our data center & a branch location.

DATA CENTER

• We plan to deploy a pair of MX87 in HA Concentrator mode
• All branch office internet traffic back hauls to the data center across a pair of MPLS backbones

BRANCH SITE

• Dual MPLS circuits terminating to dedicated traditional Cisco routers
• The plan is to deploy MX routers to replace the traditional routers

I'm testing with a MX67 at the branch site.

• I setup ports 1 & 2 as internet connections & assigned each port the IP address of each CE router
• I disconnected the MPLS circuit from each routers and plugged them into ports 1 & 2
• The MX67 never connected to the dashboard

If I understand your solution correctly, I should...

• Configure ports 1 & 2 as LAN access ports
• Assign each to a unique Vlan then plug each circuit into ports 1 & 2
• Ports 3 - 5 can be setup to connect to downstream switches

The CE addresses are advertised into the respective carrier backbones via BGP so no additional static routing should be necessary...