Solved
I am a volunteer helping a local church for IT related stuff. Trying to come up to speed on Meraki and network admin. I would love to hear suggestions on how I can improve YouTube streaming stability.
Our setup : MX64 -> C3560G Switch -> C2960 Switch -> MS120 -> streaming box (1080P; 4.5Mbps Uplink demand)
ISP: Cox business 300/30 Mbps (Dn/Up) on WAN1
No WAN2 or Cellular.
The issue: Sunday sermon streaming to YouTube is unstable. Sometimes it stutters for a few mins. Occasionally the entire session is just froze. This doesn't happen every week, but often enough to cause complaints.
Diagnostics so far:
Since the two middle switches are not Meraki, I can't see all the QoS info End-to-End..
1) MS120 <> MX64 Dashboard throughput : 15.7Mbps (btw, is this Dn/Up total or each direction?)
Streaming box <> MS120 cable test OK.
So I ruled out the potential issues from Streaming box to MX64.
2) Based on what I see from Dashboard MX64 Uplink, I want say ISP PL% issue is the likely culprit.
From MX64 Uplink - I could be wrong here but I recalled any PL above 0.5% would impact streaming quality.
From MX64 Network Usage - we're nowhere near the 30Mbps uplink limit.
If you agree with my assessment - WAN1 PL% being the problem, adding WAN2 or cellular seems to be the solution. My questions as following:
Q1: Am I reading the data right? The problem is in ISP, not within the church intranet.
Q2: the idea is to switch "only the streaming box" (static IP) to the alternative Uplink whenever WAN1 PL% is >1% (I'd love to set to 0.5%; but Meraki requires an integer in setting PL%). Is it possible from QoS policy perspective?
Q3: There is no other ISP in our area therefore we'd use cellular data as failover and we would like to use Verizon (which has a cellular tower next to us). We'd buy a 4G LTE modem (not sure if we need 5G yet). The question is, should I use it as WAN2 or Cellular connection to MX64? My research so far indicates that Cellular can be used only as failover i.e. when WAN1 is dead, and not using performance as criteria. Is it correct?
Feedback appreciated!
@AZchips I think you can only automatically redirect SD-WAN traffic based on packet loss etc., I don't think this control works for internet only connections as there isn't another end to use for the measurement.
As @DarrenOC said an MG would be a good bet on WAN2, but you'd have to manually switch it over. Bear in mind that as you are streaming, the stream will come from a different IP address when coming over WAN2, not sure if that matters to you?
Personally I'd engage with the ISP as that kind of packet loss is dreadful. Below is the graph from my wfh MX64 on a home VDSL 55/10 connection in a small UK town:
@AZchips I think you can only automatically redirect SD-WAN traffic based on packet loss etc., I don't think this control works for internet only connections as there isn't another end to use for the measurement.
As @DarrenOC said an MG would be a good bet on WAN2, but you'd have to manually switch it over. Bear in mind that as you are streaming, the stream will come from a different IP address when coming over WAN2, not sure if that matters to you?
Personally I'd engage with the ISP as that kind of packet loss is dreadful. Below is the graph from my wfh MX64 on a home VDSL 55/10 connection in a small UK town:
