Q-Balancer Range FAQ The Q-Balance LB Series The Q-Balance Balance Series is designed for Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to provide cost-effective solutions for link resilience and load balancing across multiple network links. General How many Internet Connections can I use with the Q-Balancer? What types of Internet Connection do you support? What kinds of IP assignment are supported by Q-Balancer? How does the Q-Balancer accelerate the internet access? Does the Q-Balancer provide failover and resilience to my Internet connection? How do I configure my Q-Balancer? Do I require cooperation with my ISP? How many Internet connections do you support? What is the placement for the Q-Balancer in a business network? Is a Bridge mode available in the Q-Balancer, which does not interfere with existing network structure? Does the Q-Balancer provide the IP sharing function? How does the Q-Balancer series monitor the conditions of various lines to manage traffic by line? How will the existing network change when it is installed? Can Q-Balancer manage traffic, meeting various needs? (Is QoS available?) What happens when there is a failure in the line being used by the client? Is there a Q-Balancer function related to packet monitoring? Some services have to use fixed Internet lines. Can Q-Balancer support them? Does Q-Balancer have a built-in Firewall function? Is Q-Balancer equipped with the mechanism of authentication? What is the bypass function of Q-Balancer? Does Q-Balancer support High Availability? Can Q-Balancer be deployed in virtual environment? Is Q-Balancer IPv6 ready?
What are the advantages of the Q-Balancer? How are multiple Q-Balancer appliances monitored in a distributed network? Load Balancing FAQ How is link failure detected? How do I know when an Internet connection has failed? What if I have Internet connection running at different speed? How many and what load balancing modes does Q-Balancer support? Mobile Connectivity Does Q-Balancer support 3G connections? Hoes does Q-Balancer work with satellite links? What can Q-Balancer do with 3G connections? VPN (Virtual Private Network) FAQ How does your VPN Server Pass-through work? Can I Load Balance my Virtual Private Networks? Can I interoperate with third party VPN devices? How many VPN tunnels can I create? What can Q-Balancer do to MPLS network? VoIP FAQ Can I load balance my VoIP? How can Q-Balancer assure VoIP quality? Link Bonding FAQ What is link bonding? Can a single Q-Balancer achieve link bonding? Inbound Load Balancing FAQ How does Inbound Load Balancing work on the Q-Balancer? Can I Load Balance my Inbound Services? Does Q-Balancer offer redundancy across multiple data center locations? Bandwidth Management FAQ
Does Q-Balancer support bandwidth management? What can Bandwidth Management of Q-Balancer do? Can Q-Balancer work as Quota Manager? What are the benefits of applying QoS of Q-Balancer? General FAQ How many Internet Connections can I use with the Q-Balancer? If you have 50+ users and require less than 100Mbps with 10 wan ports then you should use the 310. If you have 50+ users and require from 100 Bps up to 200Mbps with less than 15 wan ports then you should use the 400 Series (410/415/420). If you have 100+ users and require from 220 Mbps up to 350Mbps with less than 27 wan ports then you should use the 400 Series (622/625/630/635). If you have 300+ users and require from 400 Mbps up to 1200Mbps with less than 52 wan ports then you should use the 3000 Series (3040/3080/3120). If you have 1000 users and require from 1500 Mbps up to 3000Mbps with less than 52 wan ports then you should use the 5000 Series (5150/5200/5300). What types of Internet Connection do you support? Q-Balancer support Internet connections that can be presented on an Ethernet interfaces. This includes Leased Lines, xdsl, Frame Relay, ISDN Metro, floating IP ADSL, fixed IP ADSL, VDSL, 3G, and CATV. A router is required to provide any encapsulation or conversion from the particular medium. If you need fiber Gigabit interface, and you should use the 5000 Series. The USB ports can also be used for 3G/4G connections. What kinds of IP assignment are supported by Q-Balancer? Q-Balancer supports almost all known IP assignment, including Fixed IP, DHCP, PPPoE, L2TP, and PPTP. How does the Q-Balancer accelerate the internet access? The Q-Balancer will highly utilize the bandwidth by distributing traffic
across all available Internet connections, and so acceleration will be done due to the increased bandwidth offered to clients. Does Q-Balancer provide failover and resilience to my Internet connection? The Q-Balancer is able to detect network failures as well as physical failures. By combining multiple Internet connections from various independent ISPs, you are able to get increased bandwidth and to achieve nearly 100% uptime. If one of the Internet connections were to fail, then new traffic is transparently routed down the active links. How do I configure my Q-Balancer? Configuration is done through the intuitive web interface. From the factory all Q-Balancer's are configured with DHCP Server enabled allowing rapid access to start configuration. Do I require cooperation with my ISP? No, the Q-Balancer independently works with any ISP connections. We do not implement the BGP protocol so there is no need to obtain Autonomous System Numbers (ASN) or expensive equipment. How many Internet connections do you support? The Q-Balancer supports up to 52 internet connections by connecting one of its WAN ports to a switch, which all internet connections are physically attached to. This allows for a virtually nearly unlimited amount of Internet connections although the throughput will be limited depending on the number and speed of the Internet connections. What is the placement for the Q-Balancer in a business network? The Q-Balancer is mostly placed between firewall and routers. The deployment is illustrated as follows:
Is a Bridge mode available in the Q-Balancer, which does not interfere with existing network structure? When you install other companies Load Balancers, you have to check the ARP and MAC addresses of the Gateway equipment, including a Router and L3 switch. As the Q-Balancer works in a Bridge mode, it does not affect the ARP and MAC of existing equipment before or after the installation. Q-Balancer can be deployed transparently into an existing network to failover and load balance traffic without changing the legacy IP configuration of network. By installing Q-Balancer into network, you get link resiliency and increased bandwidth without taking any risk on the installation. Does the Q-Balancer provide the IP sharing function? Yes, it does. Generally ADSL or cable modem performs NAT (Network Address Translation) using an assigned IP address when it sends traffic to the line, as it is assigned an active IP address. Accordingly, you can use the Internet without problems, even if a private IP address is used internally. How does the Q-Balancer monitor the conditions of various lines to manage traffic by line?
In the case of a line with a fixed IP address like leased lines, the Q- Balancer checks if the ISP line works all right by sending the health-check packet to the domain name server, provided by the appropriate ISP, and checking the latency and packet loss. In the case of ADSL or cable modem, it evaluates whether the line is normal, based on the domain name server and communication status, provided by the appropriate ISP. The Q-Balancer can always guarantee the fastest access, as it can send packets to the line with the least traffic or the most bandwidth, by recording in real time information on the packets being transferred per line. How will the existing network change when it is installed? In Bridge mode, you just need to connect the internal backbone hub and the Router of the leased line to Q-Balancer, without any change in the network structure. Can Q-Balancer manage traffic, meeting various needs? (Is QoS available?) Using Q-Balancer, you can manage network traffic by time, user, and service type. That is, you can allow or disallow access to specific contents of specific users by time. The function of allocating and coordinating bandwidth by service type will be soon added. What happens when there is a failure in the line being used by the client? As packets are not sent to the line with a failure, the internal host cannot notice the failure. When the malfunctioning line is recovered, packets are sent normally. Is there a Q-Balancer function related to packet monitoring? There is an inbuilt function called ViewFlow, which stores information in database on the IP addresses and ports of all the packets going through Q-Balancer, so that the manager can easily arrange and analyze
the information. The ViewFlow allows administrators to insight the network-wide usage, and helps solve most of the common day-to-day problems of bandwidth management. Some services have to use fixed Internet lines. Can Q-Balancer support them? Q-Balancer has a function that fixes Internet lines, after classifying packets by Source IP, Destination IP, and session. The manager can select the path of a specific packet, by setting up line selection rules with IP and service ports. If you have any problems in using a specific service due to the rapidly changing Internet environment, contact Q-Balancer. Then, we will resolve the problems as soon as possible. Does Q-Balancer have a built-in Firewall function? Yes, Q-Balancer incorporates a fully function firewall module within all of its appliances. Every Q-Balancer appliance includes application firewall feature set, which incorporates a stateful firewall, simple rules-based application blocking, IP-MAC Binding, NAT (Network Address Translation), port and protocol based blocking, and DoS prevention. Is Q-Balancer equipped with the mechanism of authentication? A local authentication is incorporated in Q-Balancer; the external authentication servers are also supported, which include Radius, AD, and LDAP. What is the bypass function of Q-Balancer? The bypass function makes possible communication of at least two ports (Port 1 and Port 2) with the bridge line, even if you turn off the power when there is a serious problem in the device. It helps quickly recover to the existing network structure in bridge mode with exclusive lines, under the worst conditions.
Does Q-Balancer support High Availability? Yes, all models of Q-Balancer support High Availability. Deploying an infrastructure of High Availability provides instant automatic device failover in the event of hardware failure on primary device. This is also to reduce the possibility of single point of failure from unpredictable events such as power failure other than WAN failure. The planned downtime will not affect business continuity as each device can work independently from the other. Can Q-Balancer be deployed in virtual environment? Yes, the virtualized appliance of Q-Balancer is suitable for large and complex environments, and can be applicable for Services Providers and those responsible for the consolidation of several departmental networks as virtualization optimizes hardware allocation, reduces hardware expenditure, and offers flexibility. Is Q-Balancer IPv6 ready? Yes, the Q-Balancer has been successfully installed in the organizations where IPv4/IPv6 networks are already deployed. How are multiple Q-Balancer appliances monitored in a distributed network? The Centralized Management System (CMS) allows upgrading and monitoring multiple Q-Balancer appliances in a single enterprise-wide network. The function lowers the operating cost of upgrading and maintaining multiple devices from central office of large enterprise or the Network Operation Center. This function of CMS is built in the models LB3000 series to LB5000 Series without additional cost. What are the advantages of the Q-Balancer?
Existing networks have often been dependent on a single line, such as a leased line, ADSL, or Cable. Even if multiple lines were deployed, the network structure could be complex. The Q-Balancer makes it possible to use leased lines and Internet lines, such as ADSL and a cable modem at the same time as it is able to persistently route IP traffic from a specific IP address to a specific line. Also, for load balancing, it sends Internet traffic to the most responsive and available line, by checking the line condition in real time. Clients may conduct their business operations without changing the network structure. This minimizes the downtime to business networks while installing and removing the Q-Balancer. While existing network was unstable, had limitations in line type, and provided small bandwidth, the Q-Balancer provides enhanced accessibility and availability, resolving these problems. Q-Balancer has the following technologies enhancing your clients networks: Transparent Link Failover Internet Load Balancing Link Bonding Cellular Bonding VPN Resiliency VPN Bonding Policy-based Routing Inbound Load Balancing Global Server Load Balancing Application Prioritization Policy-based QoS Data Compression Web Caching Firewalling Virtualization Centralize Management
Transparent Modes (Bridge and ARP Proxy) High Availability IPv6 Ready Reporting and Diagnostics Load Balancing FAQ How is link failure detected? The Q-Balancer continuously monitors the status of each internet connection for both physical and network connectivity problems. You can configure the Q-Balancer to do a simple Ping to a specified host on the Internet or you can detect the status on the routers to a specified number of hops. How do I know when an Internet connection has failed? In the event that one of your links fails, all new traffic will be routed down the remaining active links. Most applications (especially TCP based) will attempt to retransmit the packet of data, thus the Q-Balancer will send again down an active link. What if I have Internet connection running at different speed? When configuring the Q-Balancer, download and upload speeds are configured for each link. This ensures that more traffic is sent down the faster links although bandwidth is still being increased as data is still sent down slower links. How many and what load balancing modes does Q-Balancer support? Q-Balancer supports 14 load balancing modes as follows: Failover Round Robin by IP Weighted Round Robin by IP Weighted Round Robin by Connection Round Robin by Connection (or Balance) Total Bandwidth Down link
Uplink Response IP Persistent Routing Redirect to Proxy Weighted Round Robin by Packet TCP Bonding BBLP (By Latency and Packet Loss) Mobile Connectivity Does Q-Balancer support 3G connections? Yes, the connection of 3G can be connected via USB dongles. Each model comes with 2 USB ports for USB dongles connections. In addition, 3G modules are inbuilt on the product models such as Q-Balancer Mesh, which provides business level internet. Hoes does Q-Balancer work with satellite links? The advantage of satellite connections is their availability, which covers large part of the globe. However, the satellite connection comes with high latency, limited bandwidth and high cost. These factors restrict the usage of it. Q-Balancer can be integrated with 3G, Satellite, and any other internet connections. This is to ensure users seamlessly failover from satellite to the other available links without any user intervention, or failover from the other cheap links to the expensive satellite links available without any user intervention. In this respect, satellite works as primary or secondary links. What can Q-Balancer do with 3G connections? 3G connection on Q-Balancer can be used as a backup WAN link anywhere and anytime. It is helpful for the remote station/office where ADSL is not available. Q-Balancer offers undisturbed data transfer over 3G networks and facilitates remote maintenance by assuring steady connectivity. Maximum network reliability and availability can also be achieved by bonding several mobile providers.
On top of that, bonded 3G network is capable of achieving highest uplink performance by efficiently distributing traffic across the links with its algorithms. This offers resilient high quality video transmission over 3G networks anytime and anywhere. Virtual Private Networking FAQ How does your VPN Server Pass-through work? A unique feature of the Q-Balancer product range is to allow IPSEC traffic to be passed through to a third party VPN server sitting on the LAN behind Network Address Translation (NAT). This has been successfully done and working well in many installations. Can I Load Balance my Virtual Private Networks? Yes, two Q-Balancer units are installed at both sides of the VPN, and to terminate MPV tunnels to both of the units. Even if one of the links at each site fails, VPN traffic can still flow via active MPV links. As an extra feature the VPN traffic is load balanced by packet. This means that a single session can achieve greater speeds than a single link. Can I interoperate with third party VPN devices? Yes, the Q-Balancer implements standard IPSEC and is very configurable, and so can interoperate will almost any third party VPN device including Juniper, Fortinet, and Cisco. How many VPN tunnels can I create? There is no software restriction on the number of VPN tunnels that can be created. However, for the quality concern, the VPN throughput on Q- Balancer is limited by model. What can Q-Balancer do to MPLS network? Q-Balancer can be deployed transparently into an existing MPLS network to failover and load balance traffic without changing the legacy IP setting of network. By installing Q-Balancer into MPLS network, you get link resiliency and increased bandwidth without taking any risk on the installation.
MPLS or Leased Line can even be replaced by implementing Q-Balancer with multiple business-class DSL or cable internet connections. This brings you a substantial saving without compromising the quality. VoIP FAQ Can I load balance my VoIP? Q-Balancer ensures SIP trunks can be failed over to an alternative ISP link dynamically without IT staff intervention. This feature enables maximum uptime for such deployments. In site-to-site network Q-Balancer allows failover and load balancing between multiple site-to-site connections. Should a link fail, the VoIP session will remain active over the remaining links. How can Q-Balancer assure VoIP quality? Q-Balancer prioritizes VoIP traffic, and so VoIP conversation has an improved bandwidth quality where the difficulties such as drop outs, latency and jitter are minimized. Non-critical applications are assigned lower priority to bandwidth and can also be throttled and/or filtered to ensure that enough bandwidth is highly available for quality VOIP communication. Link Bonding FAQ What is link bonding? Link Bonding is packet-level load balancing. It is achieved by deploying Q- Balancer at each end of site to site network. On Q-Balancer at both ends, the MPV tunnels are created based on IP network. The IP traffic will be sent out and distributed by packets across all available MPV tunnels with no NAT to achieve the increased bandwidth offered to clients. The link bonding function works like a virtual leased line at a fraction of cost of leased line. Can a single Q-Balancer achieve link bonding?
Link Bonding is packet-level load balancing, which cannot be done by a single Q-Balancer due to the nature of TCP/IP. The link bonding can only be achieved by deploying Q-Balancer units at each end of site to site network. Inbound Load Balancing FAQ How does Inbound Load Balancing work on the Q-Balancer? The Q-Balancer is made authoritative for a DNS domain, and it then controls the requests for that domain. Records are returned with a Time- To-Live (TTL) value of 1, so the records are not cached by other DNS servers or clients. This allows offering real time load balancing and resilience. The link state is constantly being monitored and updated, and the IP addresses of failed links are not returned to load balancing pools until it reinstate. Can I Load Balance my Inbound Services? Yes, inbound services such as HTTP and SMTP can be load balanced across all available Internet connections. This is achieved by implementing an Integrated DNS Server. Does Q-Balancer offer redundancy across multiple data center locations? Yes, Q-Balancer's Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) provides redundancy across multiple data center locations, and offers better user experience on server accessing by sharing the load between the data center locations. Bandwidth Management FAQ Does Q-Balancer support bandwidth management? Yes, the general idea of bandwidth management of Q-Balancer is that the critical applications and important users are always guaranteed bandwidth for peak performance, while non-business related IP traffic will be limited. Thus, the bandwidth resource will be used efficiently. What can Bandwidth Management of Q-Balancer do?
The Bandwidth Management of Q-Balancer enables organizations to granularly control available bandwidth based on policies for users, ports, protocols, applications, quota, and schedule over single or multiple WAN links. The Q-Balancer is incorporated the function of application prioritization, where non-critical applications are assigned lower priority to bandwidth and can also be throttled and/or filtered to ensure enough bandwidth is highly available for the critical applications such as email, VoIP and VPN. Can Q-Balancer work as Quota Manager? Yes, Q-Balancer flexibly manages the bandwidth quota based on WAN links, IP, and authenticated users. Quota manager is quite useful for the customers like schools or hotels. Actions can be taken on Q-Balancer when the quota limit is being reached. What are the benefits of applying QoS of Q-Balancer? Unlike the Bandwidth Manager products on the market, the Q-Balancer's QoS performs on multiple links concurrently. The rule of QoS function can be easily created by adding QoS object to existing load-balancing rules. Q-Balancer enables organizations to completely control bandwidth utilization based on routing policies over a single or multiple WAN links. This offers network administrators thorough bandwidth control over multi-links networks.