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Nexland Pro800Turbo Load Balancing Router Review

Posted by michael on from the when-one-is-not-enough dept.

An anonymous submitter writes "Found this review today over at OverclockersClub.com. Apparently this router can load balance two broadband connections like DSL, Cable, or T1. The router can also act as a backup feature in case one of the broadband connections goes down, the router will automatically switch to the connection still working." At $400, it's not gruesomely expensive either, and I guess if you're willing to pay for two broadband connections anyway... The spec sheet (PDF) has more information.

9 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. why not a software solution? by User+956 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why not a software solution, instead of dropping 400 bucks? Ultra Monkey is a package including LVS, prepared mostly by Horms.

    Super Sparrow is a distributed load balancing package also by Horms (formerly of VA Research|Linux|Software|Spacecraft|Doohickeys) that uses BGP route information to decide which server ought to service a request. Neat stuff. Super Sparrow is not ready for deployment, and appears to be on a back burner (due to VA's disinterest in such things these days, probably).

    LVS is the project to beat in this space, by a long ways. It is very very solid, and extremely efficient. Wensong is quite an impressive nerd.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:why not a software solution? by mindstrm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How does LVS help me use my calbe & dsl at the same time. I have 3 or four workstations on my network at home.. a mac, a couple windows boxes, and a linux box.

      Now I want ot get DSL & Cable, and use both at the same time.

      That's not a problem that LVS solves for you.

      That's the kind of thing this box does.

      This is about the home or small office user making use of multiple internet connections efficiently and easily for their networking needs.
      Yeah, of course you can do this with linux... but lvs isn't it.

    2. Re:why not a software solution? by Hoonis · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Here's a software solution from my company (Rainfinity) that doesn't use BGP:

      http://www.rainfinity.com/products/rainconnect.htm l

      Runs on linux, does other rather clever things (can rewrite DNS replies as well for *inbound* load balancing). It works nicely with either a commercial firewall (checkpoint/raptor) or IPTables; or can be used just as an HA router in front of existing firewalls. A feature this crowd will like- you can do everything via a command-line interface if you don't like GUIs too!

      DB

    3. Re:why not a software solution? by JPriest · · Score: 3, Informative

      Why would you need the BGP info? Both broadband connections are routing to the exact same gateway router. You are just load balancing the data over 2 lines to get there.

      --
      Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
    4. Re:why not a software solution? by phoneboy · · Score: 3, Interesting
      > Why not a software solution, instead of dropping 400 bucks?

      Because not everyone has the time/engery/experience/hardware necessary to set this up on a Linux box. I was running my home firewall on a Linux box until I got one of these things. It has issues, but it generally works and requires less fscking with.

      I've had one of these since October, and they're not bad. I got one of these and one of Nexland's wireless access hubs as "review units." I wrote up a review on the product, which details the pros and cons of these devices.

      -- PhoneBoy
      "I say live it or live with it." -- Firesign Theatre

      --
      The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of anyone, including the poster.
  2. Load balancing by PhysicsGenius · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This story warms the cockles of my heart. I really love it when a little guy is gets back at big, faceless corporation by putting resources together in unexpected ways like this. I mean, here he is, buy two connections and getting 1.8 times the bandwidth! And for only a modest outlay of $400! Ingenious and I bet the DSL/cable providers are beating their heads trying to find a way to discourage this kind of activity which must really eat into their profits.

    I just can't stop laughing.

  3. More LVS info for those interested... by User+956 · · Score: 5, Informative
    For those interested in using LVS for software routing, it's fairly simple. Basically, you patch a stock Linux kernel and use a tool similar to ipchains to establish virtual services. These services forward requests to your back-end real servers according to a flexible ruleset that you design.

    You can use NAT to hide the real servers from the Internet if you like. This allows you to use most any web server you like (such as IIS), but more fancy routing tricks can be done with Unix or Linux servers for even better results. We use NAT at our site (university EE department) and it can handle more load than we will ever receive -- our objective is high-availability. Also, you can use different methods for different server clusters on the same director (e.g. tunneling tricks for Linux apache servers, and less magic for IIS).

    And LVS can be set up such that once a user connects to a particular server, his subsequent connections go back to the same server.

    Useful links:

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  4. Inaccuracy by acrhemeied · · Score: 3, Informative

    "If the Duplex LED is flashing this means their has been a collision on your network. This happens when packets are dropped for some reason or the packets have been misdirected. This usually only happens when two computers are using the same IP address and this usually only happens when you specify an IP address rather than using the DHCP feature built in the router."

    Network collisions occur when two hosts try to submit simultaneously. The NIC listens for the resulting static on the network line (as static is produced when the signals garble), waits a random length of time, and retransmits. This happens (I believe) at a lower-than-protocol level.

  5. Re:I don't understand how this works by green+pizza · · Score: 3, Informative

    From what I understand, this $400 gizmo is geared towards homes and businesses that mostly surf and download on multiple computers. Unless some black magic is used, no *single* download or upload will exceed the thruput provided by the faster of the two internet connections. It's simply not possible... the router has been assigned two IP addresses from two totally different ISPs that don't know anything about each other. It is similar to a single threaded application running on a dual CPU computer -- the application will only take advantage of one CPU. However, if there are more threads running, they'll be balanced across the two. Same goes for this router. If you have multiple downloads running, they'll be spread across the two internet connections at the router. It may not be the end-all solution, but it sure would be handy for a download-happy household.

    To do what you are referring to would require a professional router (Cisco, Juniper, linux box with fancy software, etc) with BGP support and ISP(s) that are willing to help you. To use more than one ISP will require your own IP block assigned from the ARIN (not from your ISP's own block of addresses). Work with both of your ISPs to configure routing tables and away you go. Sprintlink, Worldcom, AT&T, Cable&Wireless are very helpful in configuring such a multihomed setup. Below is a link to some info from Sprintlink:
    http://www.sprint.net/faq/bgp.html