Load Balancing

Difficulty level:  Easy

Goal

To configure additional WAN interfaces on the 63xx-series router in tandem with its primary WAN uplink such that all interfaces share the network load for Internet connectivity.

NOTE: The cellular plug-in module is available as a WAN interface by default, though additional interfaces can be configured. For more information please refer to the configuration example for Dual WAN Ethernet Ports.

Setup

This article assumes the LAN ports are operating under default settings, which provide DHCP connectivity to devices connected to the 63xx-series router's LAN ports.  For more details on the default settings of the 6350-SR, see the Default Settings section of the User Manual.

For this setup, you will need the 63xx-series router with both a primary WAN Ethernet connection and a secondary means of WAN access.

Sample

The sample configuration below shows a 6350-SR with two Internet connections: a cellular-based WAN connection through the 6350-SR's modem, and a broadband-based WAN connection through the 6350-SR's WAN Ethernet port.  Both WAN interfaces will be utilized equally, sharing 50% of the WAN network traffic.

Sample Configuration

Open the configuration profile for the 63xx-series router and make the following changes.

  1. In the Modem -> Metric entry, ensure the value is set to the same number set in the Network -> Interfaces -> WAN -> IPv4 -> Metric setting.
  2. In the Modem -> Weight entry, ensure the value is set to the same number set in the Network -> Interfaces -> WAN -> IPv4 -> Weight setting.  This will set a 1:1 ratio between the two WAN interfaces, so each interface is handling 50% of the WAN network traffic.

NOTE:  The weight setting can be adjusted if you prefer to weigh the WAN traffic differently.  For example, if you instead want 75% of the WAN traffic to go through the Ethernet WAN interface, and only 25% to go through the cellular modem's WAN interface (i.e. a 1:4 ratio), you would set the weight of the Modem interface to 3 and the weight of the WAN -> IPv4 interface to 12 (or any 1:4 ratio of numbers, such as 1 and 4, or 2 and 8).