[BBLISA] Telecommunications Recommendations...

[David Miller]

Doc,
  Also to touch on the multi-wan portion of your setup as what you're doing
is identical to our setup here.
  We have a dual wan capable gateway/router/firewall/UTM device.  The T1 is
used for all incoming traffic going to our DMZ subnet using proxy arp.  So
it handles all mission critical services such as email, website, and VPN
tunnels.  Our DNS is handled outside by a vendor that keeps their record
TTLs set to 10 minutes.  So if the T1 were to go down for an extended period
of time I can update our DNS records and reconfigure the gateway to move
those services over to the Comcast connection.  I have a configuration
script prepared that would make the appropriate changes to the gateway for
me should the need arise.  Thankfully that need has never arrived, *knock on
wood*.
  All outbound traffic from our internal networks goes out the faster
Comcast connection.  But it's set up to fail this over to the T1 if the
Comcast connection goes down.  In general this allows all the employees to
surf the web and such without bogging down the T1 which is primarily for
more important functions.
  In all it's not as sexy or fancy as what a big company can do with BGP but
its all we need as a small business.
--
David

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Richard 'Doc' Kinne <rkinne at aavso.org>wrote:

> Folks:
>
> I wanted to respond with thanks regarding the responses I got for my
> requests for "telecommunications recommendations."
>
> I'll say that FIOS is not an option here in West Cambridge. I think my
> Director would die and go to heaven if I could get him FIOS, but not
> in this lifetime apparently.
>
> You folks basically were able to clue me in that the difference
> between the DS1 and Comcast was the SLA. That was valuable. Comcast
> business service didn't even know what an SLA was, interestingly
> enough.
>
> Daniel's thought on having two input streams coming into the building
> and managing them via a "twin" or "dual" WAN router was very
> interesting. I'm looking at such WAN routers now.
>
> Both Daniel and K.M. Peterson spoke of "BGPs" in terms of advertising
> routes. I have to say that I've not encountered the term "BGP" before
> along that line. What is it?
>
> Finally, David, your post regarding availability (loved the numbers!)
> and potential port blocking was an important point.
>
> At this point it looks like I can get and keep my current service, but
> get it discounted by about 20%. This savings will enable me to add the
> Comcast pipeline all for less than what we pay now. This will enable
> us to have what we want and safely test the reliability of Comcast
> over the long term.
>
> Thanks again, folks! The BBLISA list has, and continues to be, a
> critical resource which is invaluable to me, and I'm sure to many
> others as well!
> ----
> Doc Kinne
> AAVSO
> (From the Gmail Web Interface)
>
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>
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