ADSL Failover from DrayTek saves the day! Don’t get caught out…

Your business relies on its Internet connection. As Internet connectivity becomes more essential for yout business, losing it, even for a brief period can be a real problem. No Internet means no email, no web browsing and in many cases, no work. What happens in your business when the Internet is down. No email, no incoming orders, no web browsing, no news or market feeds. Every business is different, but if you rely on the Internet, hoping for the best is probably not the best plan.

ISPs don’t offer an ‘SLA’ (reliability agreement/guarantee) on ADSL lines and even if yours does, that can’t actually guarantee that your line will always work, and can always be fixed immediately. A line fault, ISP maintenance, ISP routing failure, cable damage, power failures at the ISP or exchange – all of these can break your connection – for a short time, or even for days.

What would happen if it fails for a brief period or even an extended period during the day. What impact will that have on your efficiency, productivity and your business in general?

DrayTek routers not only provide a vast array of security and connectivity features, they have secondary connections for an alternative (backup) Internet connection. For example, with a Vigor 2820 ADSL Router/Firewall, your primary feed would be ADSL. In the event of that failing, the Vigor2820 will automatically switch over to one of the following:

• A second ADSL line, using a separate ADSL modem and different ISP
• 3G Cellular Data using a USB 3G modem (e.g. T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone etc.)
• Most service providers have ‘Pay as you Go’ data tariffs now.
• Analogue dial-up using a USB modem
• Analogue dial-up is much slower than ADSL, but usable if your Internet connection is essential.
• A cable-modem service
• Any other Internet connection via an Ethernet cable

Once your primary (main) broadband service is restored, the router again automatically switches back to that. As well as failover mode, when both connections are available, the router can use both at the same time to provide more total Internet bandwidth to your network.

If your main internet feed is SDSL instead, then a combination of a Vigor 2950 router with one SDSL and one ADSL modem would provide backup using ADSL. There are many different combinations depending on your primary connection.

Load Balancing

When not being used for failover, many DrayTek products can use the second internet connectivity simultaneously with your first for ‘load balancing’ which increases your total Internet bandwidth. Load balancing either automatically spreads your internet traffic across both connections, or you set rules for specific traffic or users to use specific connections.