Intelligent WAN Vector Routing™

Only the EdgeXOS platform incorporates eleven (11) sophisticated algorithms for determining how to route traffic between multiple network paths. Using XRoads intelligent WAN (iWAN) vector routing customers can combine multiple broadband links for more throughput and faster speeds for high bandwidth applications.

Best Path Routing

XRoads Networks solutions incorporate our intelligent WAN routing technology which includes our Best Path Routing™ module. XRoads intelligent WAN routing ensures that network traffic uses the most appropriate network path through a latency and packet loss testing performed across the available WAN links. Once the best path is determined all session traffic associated with that path traverses the chosen link. In the event of a network failure all traffic will be routed across the next best path.

XRoads Networks best path routing can help your network applications by reducing latency and providing improved response times for end-users, thus increasing productivity. The EdgeXOS appliance also reduces downtime for these critical applications by providing automated network failover.

Application Routing

Intelligent WAN routing also allows you to quickly force specific types of application and/or source traffic through a specific WAN interface. This means that end-user traffic will always take the most appropriate traffic based on either Best Path Routing™ or your specific application routing policies. The customer can choose the best method however you can not use both at the same time as Best Path Routing™ does not examine the data type or any other aspect of the traffic passing through the appliance in order to determine how to route it as this could cause issues with session persistence.

Routing Methods

Algorithm Metrics

  • Available Link Rate
  • Current Session Utilization (per path)
  • Current Latency (per path)
  • Last Path Used (per path)
  • Administrative Weighting (per path)

The Multi Vector Priority Routing algorithm is designed to provide two fundamental services, dynamic network load balancing across multiple paths and reliability assurance in the event that one or more of those paths should fail.

Intelligent Vector Routing uses various metrics (below) to determine how new network sessions should be routed over the various active links. Unlike other load balancing solutions, it does not use simple Robin-Robin balancing. The EdgeXOS platform uses a combination of 11 different network aggregation algorithms which are continuously fed metric information that is used to determine the best next hop for outbound connections. Some of the routing options include:

  • Intelligent Vector Routing Algorithm Includes:
    • Least Used Adaptive Weighting
    • BPR Latency Based
    • BPR Packet Loss Based
    • BPR Jitter Based
    • Persistence Based
    • Application Based
    • Prioritization Based
    • Multi-Session Based
  • Active Spill-Over
  • Standard Weighted
  • Basic Round Robin

XRoads Networks has been asked it if includes bandwidth usage rates to remote destinations, or if it takes in to account the data transfer rate to specific destinations when determining how it is routing this traffic, and the technical answer is no. XRoads Networks does take in to account overall utilization of the links when initially configuring the appliance, and the customer can modify the routing based on the overall bandwidth utilization of the links (number of sessions, etc), however attempting to dynamically change session routing based on the bandwidth or data transfer rate to a remote destination is not implemented by XRoads Networks and not recommended in general as it can cause a number of application related issues, specifically for applications that require session persistence, including VoIP, Citrix, and many SSL applications. None of these applications would work properly if routing was performed based on the bandwidth/data transfer rate.

Intelligent Vector Routing Algorithm

The default and recommended method for determining path balancing is our iWAN Vector Routing option. This option is the most dynamic and uses real-time metric information to determine how to best route new session traffic.

Deployment Scenarios

The following examples demonstrate the flexability in the EdgeXOS platforms design. These appliances can be deployed in a number of different environments based on the requirements of the customer and the existing infrastrucutre.