Tag: WAN Bonding

Transforming Connectivity Solutions: A Deep Dive into Digi WAN Bonding

In today’s digital landscape, seamless and dependable connectivity serves as the cornerstone for both businesses and individuals. Enter Digi WAN Bonding, an innovative solution from Digi International that revolutionizes connectivity by combining multiple connections into a unified, robust network. Recently, I had the privilege to engage in a discussion with Nate Pleasant from Digi, exploring the nuances of WAN Bonding and its transformative potential.

Understanding Digi WAN Bonding

Digi WAN Bonding harnesses the power of Bondix Simple Aggregation of Networks (S.A.NE), comprising two integral components — one embedded within the Digi device and another on an external virtual private server (VPS). The client program intelligently segments outgoing traffic based on factors such as latency, consistency, and user-assigned priorities. Subsequently, the VPS reassembles and forwards the segmented traffic, ensuring optimal performance by leveraging the strengths of each interface.

Key Features:

  1. Hot failover: Ensures uninterrupted connectivity with zero packet loss or failover wait time.
  2. WAN aggregation: Combines multiple WAN links to enhance speed and bandwidth, achieving up to 1 Gbps.
  3. WAN smoothing: Minimizes latency and jitter by concurrently transmitting data through multiple channels.
  4. WAN prioritization: Automatically selects or allows manual configuration of the most optimal active WAN link, thereby balancing traffic efficiently.
  5. Packet duplication: Replicates packets across multiple WAN links to ensure the delivery of mission-critical data.
  6. Simple integration: Facilitates easy deployment on a variety of Digi routers across diverse environments via Digi Remote Manager® (Digi RM).
  7. Increased throughput: Offers subscription options for 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps, and 1 Gbps maximum throughput.

What Are the Use Cases for Digi WAN Bonding?

Digi WAN Bonding seamlessly integrates multiple connections from Digi devices into a resilient and robust network infrastructure. By consolidating various connections, including cellular and wired, WAN Bonding optimizes performance, maximizes speed, and guarantees uninterrupted connectivity, even in dynamic scenarios such as moving vehicles.

WAN Bonding offers a multitude of versatile applications across various sectors:

  • Remote Offices and Branch Locations: Businesses operating remote offices or branches can harness WAN Bonding to consolidate multiple WAN connections. This approach ensures robust network connectivity, vital for supporting the operational needs of dispersed employees.
  • Enhanced Cloud Connectivity: Leveraging WAN Bonding can significantly enhance cloud connectivity for businesses. By aggregating multiple WAN connections, enterprises can guarantee seamless access to cloud-based applications and services, even during connectivity disruptions.
  • Backup and Disaster Recovery: WAN Bonding serves as a robust component of backup and disaster recovery strategies. By combining diverse WAN links, organizations fortify their network resilience, ensuring continuous operations in the face of unforeseen failures or disasters.
  • Support for High-Bandwidth Applications: Businesses reliant on bandwidth-intensive applications like video conferencing, online gaming, and large-scale data transfers benefit immensely from WAN Bonding. Aggregating multiple WAN connections empowers these enterprises to meet the demands of such applications efficiently.
  • Transportation Connectivity: WAN Bonding revolutionizes connectivity in transportation sectors, such as trains and buses. By combining different WAN connections, transportation authorities can deliver lightning-fast internet speeds to support a myriad of onboard devices. These include data-intensive applications, live video streaming across multiple media displays, security camera feeds, and onboard passenger Wi-Fi, thereby enhancing the overall travel experience.
  • Ensuring Mission-Critical Data Integrity: WAN Bonding’s packet duplication feature offers unparalleled reliability for transmitting mission-critical data in remote locations. Beyond merely boosting throughput, this feature guarantees the 100% delivery of vital data even across high-latency or unreliable internet connections. This is especially crucial for maintaining the integrity of critical applications at remote sites, where network stability is paramount.

Q&A Highlights

  1. Throughput: Depending on the router model, Digi WAN Bonding offers varying throughput capacities. For instance, a Digi TX64 with three 200Mbps connections (Ethernet WAN + 2 cellular connections) can ensure up to 480Mbps bonded throughput.
  2. Comparison with SD-WAN: While SD-WAN encompasses diverse technologies, Digi WAN Bonding focuses on WAN optimization, efficiently distributing network traffic across WANs to achieve optimal performance.

Handling Connections

  1. Managing high latency connections like satellite: Digi WAN Bonding employs intelligent traffic monitoring to optimize performance, dynamically selecting the most suitable interface based on latency and bandwidth.
  2. Efficient handling of multiple cellular connections: WAN Bonding continuously monitors traffic across bonded interfaces, effectively utilizing multiple cellular connections to maximize performance.
  3. Advantages for single versus multiple device usage: Digi WAN Bonding enhances connectivity for both single devices and networks of devices by aggregating WAN links, increasing speed, reducing latency, and ensuring seamless failover.

Usage and Deployment

  1. The Flexibility of Digi: While Digi WAN Bonding requires server-side functionality, users have the flexibility to install the server on various platforms (such as a cloud-based VPS, customer datacenter, or private cellular network), catering to diverse deployment needs.
  2. Monitoring and analytics: Digi routers offer comprehensive monitoring tools locally and through the WAN Bonding server, allowing users to analyze statistics and fine-tune performance.
  3. Compatibility and control: Digi WAN Bonding can be deployed across various environments and offers extensive control over bandwidth allocation, traffic prioritization, and routing.

Cost and Conclusion

Digi WAN Bonding is licensed annually per router based on maximum throughput requirements, with pricing plans tailored to diverse user needs. The solution stands out for its unmatched speed, reliability, and flexibility, empowering businesses to thrive in today’s digital landscape. With its comprehensive features, robust infrastructure, and customer-centric approach, Digi WAN Bonding continues to set new standards for excellence in connectivity solutions.

Interested in utilizing Digi WAN Bonding? Digi offers a range of routers suitable for WAN Bonding across different sectors, including:

Reach out to your friends at 5Gstore.com for assistance building your Digi WAN Bonding solution today!

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How Can Digi WAN Bonding Help Me?

Digi WAN Bonding is a solution that goes beyond traditional failover strategies. This value-added service, accessible through Digi Remote Manager®, introduces a technique that optimizes connectivity by aggregating multiple connections, ensuring enhanced speed, reduced latency, and improved reliability. This blog explores the intricacies of Digi WAN Bonding, shedding light on how it works and its diverse applications across various industries.

Understanding Digi WAN Bonding

Digi WAN Bonding leverages the power of Bondix Simple Aggregation of Networks (S.A.NE), comprising two programs — one embedded in the Digi device and another on an external virtual private server (VPS). The client program intelligently divides outgoing traffic based on factors such as latency, consistency, and user-assigned priorities. The VPS then reconstitutes and forwards the divided traffic, ensuring optimal performance by considering the strengths of each interface.

Key Features:

  1. Hot failover: Ensures uninterrupted connectivity with no packet loss or failover wait time.
  2. WAN aggregation: Combines multiple WAN links to increase speed and bandwidth, reaching up to 1 Gbps.
  3. WAN smoothing: Minimizes latency and jitter by simultaneously sending data through multiple channels.
  4. WAN prioritization: Automatically selects or allows manual setting of the best active WAN link, balancing traffic accordingly.
  5. Packet duplication: Replicates packets on multiple WAN links to guarantee the delivery of mission-critical data.
  6. Simple integration: Easy deployment on a range of Digi routers in diverse environments via Digi Remote Manager.
  7. Increased throughput: Offers subscription options for 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps, and 1 Gbps maximum throughput.

WAN Bonding Modes

Digi WAN Bonding provides various modes, including automatic, cellular-optimized for speed or latency, Ethernet, low latency, and TCP mode, catering to different network requirements and scenarios. But what do these mean exactly?

  • Automatic: Automatically sets the mode to Cellular Optimized for Speed-mode for cellular, and Ethernet for non-cellular. This is the default mode.
  • Cellular Optimized for Speed: A general-purpose configuration suitable for most lines (4G, DSL, etc.), with a fair tolerance for packet loss and latency.
  • Cellular Optimized for Latency: Another preset for mobile connections with an even higher focus on reducing latency.
  • Ethernet: A preset for direct Ethernet connections, very sensitive to latency and packet loss.
  • Low Latency: Similar to Ethernet preset, but with higher tolerance for packet loss.
  • TCP Mode: Utilizes TCP instead of UDP. Higher throughput rate at the cost of latency. Useful in scenarios where UDP is throttled or blocked.

Components of Digi WAN Bonding

  1. WAN Bonding Client (Bondix S.A.NE client): Included in DAL OS firmware and enabled via Digi Remote Manager, it sets up a tunnel with the server, breaks down data traffic into packages, and ensures the best-possible performance with a built-in bonding proxy.
  2. WAN Bonding Tunnel: The logical connection that bonds multiple WAN links, transporting data packages and offering multiple methods for sending traffic, such as WAN priority, WAN smoothing, and packet redundancy.
  3. WAN Bonding Server: Acts as the endpoint for the tunnel, can be hosted on a Linux VM or cloud infrastructure without a license cost, and supports single and multi-instance servers for scalability.

WAN Bonding Applications and Benefits

Digi WAN Bonding is instrumental in scenarios requiring increased throughput or availability of remote applications. By utilizing multiple connections — whether fixed network or wireless — users can enhance bandwidth and uptime, effectively avoiding issues related to line failures or network problems. Here are just a few examples of some use cases for Digi WAN Bonding:

  1. Cellular Resiliency for Vehicles:
    In the realm of public transit, uptime is paramount for both passengers and operators. Consider the scenario of a Digi TX64 5G cellular router in a transit vehicle equipped with two cellular modems (WWAN1 and WWAN2) connected to different providers. While Digi Surelink® provides failover capability, Digi WAN Bonding intelligently balances the two cellular connections based on quality metrics. As one connection gradually degrades, it is used only when the most effective connection has been saturated. This ensures continuous, reliable connectivity during the vehicle’s journey.
  2. More Bandwidth in Office Environments:
    For an office user relying on a symmetric 100 Mbps copper line, large file transfers often lead to congestion and slowdowns in the network. Digi WAN Bonding transforms this scenario by combining the symmetric wired connection with an asymmetric cellular connection. This dynamic pairing significantly increases throughput without compromising the low latency of fiber, even under heavy loads. The result is a streamlined network experience, especially beneficial for remote workers requiring VPN access to the office network.
  3. Protecting Mission-Critical Data in Remote Locations:
    Digi WAN Bonding introduces packet duplication as a safeguard for mission-critical data in remote locations. By simultaneously sending packets through all available Internet connections and transmitting only the first packet received on either end of the bonded connection, this use case prioritizes data certainty over increased throughput. It ensures that data transmissions are delivered with 100% certainty, even in scenarios involving high-latency or intermittent connections.

Why Choose Digi WAN Bonding? 

Digi WAN Bonding, powered by Bondix S.A.NE, is a versatile and cost-effective solution for optimizing connectivity in diverse environments. Its robust features, simplified pricing, and seamless integration make it a compelling choice for businesses seeking enhanced speed, reliability, and resilience in their network infrastructure. Whether in transportation, retail, or other enterprise and industrial applications, Digi WAN Bonding paves the way for a future where connectivity is both efficient and steadfast.

Contact the 5Gstore team to learn more about Digi WAN Bonding today!

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