Number of WAN uplinks supported by MX105

[dlowery]

I have a client who is going to have 3 separate uplinks feeding their remote location. They will have primary fiber service, a Starlink connection, and also want a cellular gateway. My question is if it is supported to have all three of these connections live at the same time on the MX105. Talk about overkill, but it's what the client wants, so that's why I'm asking.

[DarrenOC]

Looks like the MX105 has 4 dedicated WAN interfaces (2 x 10GbE SFP+ and 2 x 2.5GbE ports) and a USB cellular failover connection.  Is your cellular via USB?  If so that would only work during failover.

No reason why you couldn't have all 3 connections running in some form of load balanced mode.  This would also depend on your traffic priorities and applications you're running on your internal network.

[dlowery]

We would prefer to use a Meraki cellular gateway, which should allow us to add it to the active connections. Thanks for the response!

[DarrenOC]

Hi @dlowery , then as you state you’re good to go.

Is your customer overly worried about loss of connectivity by any chance 😁

[cmr]

@DarrenOC and @Inderdeep are you sure that you can setup three WANs and it isn't just two WANs out of the pair of SFP+ ports and pair of RJ-45 ports?

@DarrenOC you should be able to test on the device you have as that has more than two physical WAN ports, does it allow more than two WAN connections?

[Inderdeep]

@cmr : 2 WAN ( Yes either to use RJ45 or SFP+) and 1 Cellular. 

Not have MX 105 else i will check if it works 🙂 

[cmr]

@MeredithW any chance of getting @Inderdeep an MX105 so he can test the theory? 😇

[Inderdeep]

@cmr : are you saying we can only use 2 WAN interfaces ? Sorry if i am wrong somewhere ..

[cmr]

@Inderdeep I'm saying we need to test as the MX100 can potentially have ~10 WAN interfaces according to the LEDs on the front, but in actual fact it can only have 2 in the software.  I hope the MX105 can have four 🤞

[DarrenOC]

I read the datasheet that you can have four connections.

Anyone from Meraki shed any light here?

@GreenMan sorry to pick on you 😁

[GreenMan]

Just to confirm:   at FCS it's definitely x2 active WAN uplinks, as other models, but you now have media flexibility.   I have requested that the datasheets be amended to bring clarity in this.

[dlowery]

This was more what my question was about. I know it has lots of WAN ports, but wasn't sure if they are supported to all be live at once.

[Bruce]

Assuming the MX105 is just like the MX75/85 then (at launch) you’ll only be able to have two WAN ports active at a time, plus USB failover - essentially like any other Meraki device. Putting a SFP into one of the SFP ports will disable the corresponding RJ45 port (this automatic behaviour can be overridden on the local status page).

[thomasthomsen]

I think we REALLY need some clarification here.

Can we have more then two simultaneous uplinks active on the new MX's or not ?

If not, then what's the point ? - And, then Meraki has really failed in their datasheets and presentation of this product.

I think everyone was assuming that you could have more then two active.

[PhilipDAth]

It is highly improbably you'll be able to have more than 2 interfaces activate at a time.  The USB cellular has always been for failover only.

The appearance of additional interfaces will be so you can connector copper OR fibre but not both at the same time.  More than likely, they will simply be a dual personality port.

Do not expect to have more than two uplinks operational at a time.  The entire Meraki software system is built around this concept.  It is not something Meraki could simply change.

[thomasthomsen]

We all know that the USB port has always been for failover.

But if these ports are like good old switch combo ports (if anyone remembers those) I think a lot of people are gonna be disappointed, and Meraki has kinda failed in their marketing, because Im (I was?) convinced, from the presentations I have seen, that the would work at the same time (more the two).

Also kinda from all the posts on this tread.

"It is not something Meraki could simply change." - Well .. here I would like to disagree with you a little, since most of it is software (unless they took the humongous bad decision of making the ports hardware dependant), then they could "simply" (<- notice the "") change it.

Lets see what happens. 

[Bruce]

Just to clear this up for the moment, this is from the MX95/105 hardware install guide, https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/MX_Installation_Guides/MX95%2F%2FMX105_Series_Hardware_Installat...

[thomasthomsen]

Yep there it is.

They should then change the description of the datasheets and change the wording of the description of the WAN ports. To not say "AND" and change the "4" to 2 combo ports.

This is, in my opinion, clearly a fail.

I was hyped for these MX's and the SD-WAN capabilities, now, not so much.

[DarrenOC]

But I read

• Four dedicated WAN uplinks, two 10G SFP+ ports and two RJ45 2.5G mGig ports.

[DarrenOC]

That is a poor document.....right at the bottom hidden in the detail

Setting up a Secondary WAN Interface on the MX95/105 

MX95/105 devices come with four dedicated Internet ports, only two can be used at a time

[DarrenOC]

How on earth can you get away with describing something as dedicated....but you can only use half?  Yes I get it that they can only be used as WAN interfaces but put that detail at the top or in the Matrix

[thomasthomsen]

Yes correct. Well, I would then assume (perhaps wrongly) that I could perhaps have 4 seperate WAN connections, but only 2 active at the time. But I think this is not the case.

I still think this is a major fail.

[thomasthomsen]

Or they really need to change the word "dedicated" to "combo" port. Then it would explain everything.
https://imgur.com/gallery/8WsTL2t <- For the double ports.

[rhbirkelund]

Perhaps @CarolineS could ping someone from the Meraki MX PM team to join the discussion?

[Inderdeep]

Sorry i checked late, its already confirmed with 2 ports only.

[cmr]

I think the install guide makes it pretty clear.  Definitely only 2 concurrent WAN ports with current firmware.

There have been requests for more than 2 WAN connections for many years that the Meraki development team are well aware of, so hopefully adding the extra WAN ports on the new MX models is a step towards this.

[Inderdeep]

@dlowery : You are good with the 3 links on MX105. Go ahead !

Ports supported 

2x 10GbE SFP+
2x 2.5GbE RJ45 (1x PoE+)
1x USB (cellular failover1)