Which Router for small business

jamoor · 26 Jan 2018 at 20:00

We have 10 clients hooked up to a 30mb leased line doing usual office tasks, nothing special.

We also have an adsl failover.

Can anyone recommend a decent business class router with Dual WAN for load balancing/failover? I don't need wireless and the like.

I've looked at the Draytek range, e.g vigor 2926. Anyone have any experience? Thanks.

crinkleshoes · 26 Jan 2018 at 20:08

I wouldn't recommend such a cheap model.

At least go with the Vigor 3900... it's an OK cheap router.

Otherwise Mikrotik.

Or Meraki MX64.

Or Juniper SRX320.

All those options are a vaguely similar price... I'd go for the Meraki for ease of use or Juniper for performance... Draytek and Mikrotik are acceptable, but pale in comparison... anything else is junk at that price point.

jamoor · 26 Jan 2018 at 20:35

Any reason for not recommending it?

Which mikrotik?

I have had a look at the cisco and juniper ones, I am not sure if I need all the threat management features, seems a bit overkill that's all.

£400 odd is a bit beyond our budget too :/

crinkleshoes · 26 Jan 2018 at 21:18

£400 investment into the core infrastructure of a business is chump change... tell the managers they need to realise the importance... how much money would they lose if they lost the internet access for 1 day? or 2-3 weeks, as is the turnaround time for a Draytek RTB warranty?

Threat management is becoming ever more important... but those features are optional, per an extra charge... not included in the base price... although with Juniper... they're not very expensive... Meraki and Cisco have a large markup on the service.

brendy · 26 Jan 2018 at 21:20

I have Drayteks set up around several of my sites, they work fine and have been for years at a time before being replaced for newer models.

Hellsmk2 · 27 Jan 2018 at 00:17

I'd look at the lower end watchguard firewalls. Draytek are OK, but I wouldn't touch them outside of a home network.

neil_g · 27 Jan 2018 at 08:05

Hellsmk2 said:
I'd look at the lower end watchguard firewalls. Draytek are OK, but I wouldn't touch them outside of a home network.

Agreed. Watchguard with the subscription addons for gateway av, webblocker, reputation checker, intrusion protection, botnet protection etc.

I always seem to be rebooting Drayteks

jamoor · 27 Jan 2018 at 10:43

crinkleshoes said:
£400 investment into the core infrastructure of a business is chump change... tell the managers they need to realise the importance... how much money would they lose if they lost the internet access for 1 day? or 2-3 weeks, as is the turnaround time for a Draytek RTB warranty?

Threat management is becoming ever more important... but those features are optional, per an extra charge... not included in the base price... although with Juniper... they're not very expensive... Meraki and Cisco have a large markup on the service.

I still have the old sonicwall as a backup so that's not too much of a concern.

Mikrotik seem good value, are they any good?

crinkleshoes · 27 Jan 2018 at 14:11

Yeah, they’re pretty good, especially for the price.

Draytek are ok too... we have 100s of them deployed and minimal issues.

Quartz · 27 Jan 2018 at 14:20

crinkleshoes said:
£400 investment into the core infrastructure of a business is chump change... tell the managers they need to realise the importance... how much money would they lose if they lost the internet access for 1 day? or 2-3 weeks, as is the turnaround time for a Draytek RTB warranty?

You are right to highlight equipment failure, but even the most expensive item can fail. The OP should be purchasing two routers, with one as a warm spare.

crinkleshoes · 27 Jan 2018 at 14:24

Preferably yes, but given their tight budget - I would rather 1 good router over 2 crummy ones.

jamoor · 27 Jan 2018 at 14:35

crinkleshoes said:
Yeah, they’re pretty good, especially for the price.

Draytek are ok too... we have 100s of them deployed and minimal issues.

Have you ever had any problems with them crashing or anything like that?

jamoor · 27 Jan 2018 at 14:36

crinkleshoes said:
Preferably yes, but given their tight budget - I would rather 1 good router over 2 crummy ones.

To be fair I have my old router as a backup, for 10 users even a consumer router will do until a replacement is sourced. I think some people lose sight of the fact that not every business is a 200 user multi site business that require time critical infrastructure.

pcfarrar · 27 Jan 2018 at 16:22

You can get a Watchguard T15 with 3 Year basic security for around £400. As mentioned by others the IP reputation, geolocation blocking, IPS, botnet protection etc. is decent and they are constantly adding new security features and improvements.

Sparky__H · 27 Jan 2018 at 19:16

A checkpoint SMB such as a 1430 or a Fortigate appliance.

crinkleshoes · 27 Jan 2018 at 20:01

jamoor said:
Have you ever had any problems with them crashing or anything like that?

Yes... under a few scenarios.

1. When auto-reboot is enabled... sometimes they simply will not come back and have to be returned to base to fix (or have an engineer onsite)... a simple power cycle won't do. The fix is to update the firmware (even if it's to the same version) and it brings them back online.
2. HA likes to throw a hissy fit for no apparent reason and will just start switching between the primary and secondary routers in a loop causing severe network disruption and only resolved by powering them off and back on again.
3. On the slightly older firmware versions, we would randomly see the CPU usage spike to 80-100% and stay there... it would just happen with no apparent reason. It would cause massive pings continuously & dropped packets. The latest firmware version appears to have resolved this.

I don't like Drayteks very much... I'm pushing my company towards SonicWall, Juniper and Meraki.

That said, for the price point, the Drayteks generally do a good job.

jamoor said:
To be fair I have my old router as a backup, for 10 users even a consumer router will do until a replacement is sourced. I think some people lose sight of the fact that not every business is a 200 user multi site business that require time critical infrastructure.

Yeah... with tight budget limitations - I'd also do that... spend the money on a really good primary but keep something that'll hopefully cover the basics if the primary fails.

The ideal is of course to have 2 good ones... but I'd rather go that route with 1 good one and 1 consumer, rather than 2 cheapy business level things.

Sparky__H said:
A checkpoint SMB such as a 1430 or a Fortigate appliance.

I've heard good things about the Fortigates... haven't had a chance to try them myself yet.

We have a customer who are looking to install a 10gig fibre line shortly & I'm looking to try a Fortigate for that as their price/performance on 10 gig WAN is much better than the competition.

Caged · 27 Jan 2018 at 20:58

crinkleshoes said:
I wouldn't recommend such a cheap model.

At least go with the Vigor 3900... it's an OK cheap router.

I'm intrigued by this answer. If the 2926 features and throughput tick the boxes, why is it recommended to go for a 3900 instead? It comes across like the idea of an inexpensive router is not agreeable to you, but a more expensive one from the same vendor, running software written by the same team is OK.

Sparky__H · 27 Jan 2018 at 21:00

crinkleshoes said:
I've heard good things about the Fortigates... haven't had a chance to try them myself yet.

We have a customer who are looking to install a 10gig fibre line shortly & I'm looking to try a Fortigate for that as their price/performance on 10 gig WAN is much better than the competition.

Solid little boxes. The 10GB models can be expensive but as you said compare it to the competitors and its a very good price.

Whoever is picking up he bill, make sure a cluster is discussed along with a managed service or support contract.

jamoor · 27 Jan 2018 at 21:26

crinkleshoes said:
Yes... under a few scenarios.

1. When auto-reboot is enabled... sometimes they simply will not come back and have to be returned to base to fix (or have an engineer onsite)... a simple power cycle won't do. The fix is to update the firmware (even if it's to the same version) and it brings them back online.
2. HA likes to throw a hissy fit for no apparent reason and will just start switching between the primary and secondary routers in a loop causing severe network disruption and only resolved by powering them off and back on again.
3. On the slightly older firmware versions, we would randomly see the CPU usage spike to 80-100% and stay there... it would just happen with no apparent reason. It would cause massive pings continuously & dropped packets. The latest firmware version appears to have resolved this.

I don't like Drayteks very much... I'm pushing my company towards SonicWall, Juniper and Meraki.

That said, for the price point, the Drayteks generally do a good job.

Yeah... with tight budget limitations - I'd also do that... spend the money on a really good primary but keep something that'll hopefully cover the basics if the primary fails.

The ideal is of course to have 2 good ones... but I'd rather go that route with 1 good one and 1 consumer, rather than 2 cheapy business level things.

I've heard good things about the Fortigates... haven't had a chance to try them myself yet.

We have a customer who are looking to install a 10gig fibre line shortly & I'm looking to try a Fortigate for that as their price/performance on 10 gig WAN is much better than the competition.

This doesn't sound great. I have a TZ205 at the moment and I haven't ever touched it and am looking for a similar experience.

Liquidfox · 28 Jan 2018 at 18:51

jamoor said:
Have you ever had any problems with them crashing or anything like that?

A lot of the 2820s and 2830s we have out there like to have the odd DNS issue every now and again, solved with a reboot, even on the latest firmware. The 28x2 range seems to be a lot more stable.

crinkleshoes said:
3. On the slightly older firmware versions, we would randomly see the CPU usage spike to 80-100% and stay there... it would just happen with no apparent reason. It would cause massive pings continuously & dropped packets. The latest firmware version appears to have resolved this.

I don't like Drayteks very much... I'm pushing my company towards SonicWall, Juniper and Meraki.

That said, for the price point, the Drayteks generally do a good job.

We have experienced the CPU issue too, but as you say the newer firmware has definitely fixed this. I'd be wary about the Sonicwall range, we've done the same as you're planning and already I'm starting to despise them, their stability isn't the best in the TZ range and their support is woeful at best.

For the cost the Draytek does a great job.