SRX

Our ISP is providing 2Gbps internet via a 10G SFP+ but our SRX340 only has 1G SFP ports. Is it possible for me to use an intermediate 5-port switch with one 10G SFP+ port to connect to my ISP equipment, and use 2x 1G links to the SRX340 and still somehow take advantage of the 2Gbps speed? I imagine I would have to assign an IP address to each link and use some sort of load balancing, but before I get too deep I thought I'd ask if this is possible, whether there is a different way I should go about it, or if I should just continue to say goodbye to that extra 1Gbps of speed. 

Thanks in advance for any advice

Yes, and no. Yes, you can hook up two 1G connections via a switch and configure load-balancing, but SRX will do load-balancing per flow.

In practical terms that means that no single connection (flow) can exceed 1G. So if you start downloading a file from the internet, you'd never see speeds greater than 1G. But, if someone else on a different computer next to you starts downloading a file, too, there's a chance you'll both be downloading at 1G at the same time. There's also an equal chance that you'll both go at 0.5G, depending on how lucky you are with getting load-balanced into the same link or different links.

Overall, if you have lots of users using lots of computers, load-balancing could work out pretty well.

--------------

If you do decide to go load balancing, you have two options depending on the switch you use. If the switch supports link aggregation (LACP or not), then you can configure LAG on the SRX and your configuration will be much much simpler. And, bonus, you'll only consume 1 IP address. If the switch doesn't support link aggregation, then you'll have to do Layer 3 load-balancing on the SRX. Either way, both should work fine, but LAG is just much much simpler to configure. Actually, since it's a 5-port switch, with LAG you can just as easily bundle 4 links to the SRX, why not!

------------------------------
Nikolay Semov

Original Message:
Sent: 03-27-2024 16:51
From: bhrd
Subject: How to take advantage of a 2Gbps link with 1G SFPs?

Our ISP is providing 2Gbps internet via a 10G SFP+ but our SRX340 only has 1G SFP ports. Is it possible for me to use an intermediate 5-port switch with one 10G SFP+ port to connect to my ISP equipment, and use 2x 1G links to the SRX340 and still somehow take advantage of the 2Gbps speed? I imagine I would have to assign an IP address to each link and use some sort of load balancing, but before I get too deep I thought I'd ask if this is possible, whether there is a different way I should go about it, or if I should just continue to say goodbye to that extra 1Gbps of speed. 

Thanks in advance for any advice

Thanks for the reply!

"SRX will do load-balancing per flow" - I figured as much, that's no surprise. We do have plenty of users, so I think it will mostly come out in the wash anyhow. 

The equipment from our ISP has several SFP+ ports, so maybe I'll reach out and see if they can set up a LAG with 2x 1G SFP. That would surely require some coordination, but would save the intermediate 5-port switch. I could also use two static nat pools and assign an IP to each 1G interface, and segregate out campus traffic by source address. That way I could say "these buildings all share 1Gbps, and those buildings share another 1Gbps".  That could work either with a 5-port 10G/4x1G switch or 2x1G SFP from my ISP.  Hooray for options!

Thanks again

Yes, and no. Yes, you can hook up two 1G connections via a switch and configure load-balancing, but SRX will do load-balancing per flow.

In practical terms that means that no single connection (flow) can exceed 1G. So if you start downloading a file from the internet, you'd never see speeds greater than 1G. But, if someone else on a different computer next to you starts downloading a file, too, there's a chance you'll both be downloading at 1G at the same time. There's also an equal chance that you'll both go at 0.5G, depending on how lucky you are with getting load-balanced into the same link or different links.

Overall, if you have lots of users using lots of computers, load-balancing could work out pretty well.

--------------

If you do decide to go load balancing, you have two options depending on the switch you use. If the switch supports link aggregation (LACP or not), then you can configure LAG on the SRX and your configuration will be much much simpler. And, bonus, you'll only consume 1 IP address. If the switch doesn't support link aggregation, then you'll have to do Layer 3 load-balancing on the SRX. Either way, both should work fine, but LAG is just much much simpler to configure. Actually, since it's a 5-port switch, with LAG you can just as easily bundle 4 links to the SRX, why not!

------------------------------
Nikolay Semov

Original Message:
Sent: 03-27-2024 16:51
From: bhrd
Subject: How to take advantage of a 2Gbps link with 1G SFPs?

Our ISP is providing 2Gbps internet via a 10G SFP+ but our SRX340 only has 1G SFP ports. Is it possible for me to use an intermediate 5-port switch with one 10G SFP+ port to connect to my ISP equipment, and use 2x 1G links to the SRX340 and still somehow take advantage of the 2Gbps speed? I imagine I would have to assign an IP address to each link and use some sort of load balancing, but before I get too deep I thought I'd ask if this is possible, whether there is a different way I should go about it, or if I should just continue to say goodbye to that extra 1Gbps of speed. 

Thanks in advance for any advice

Yes, and no. Yes, you can hook up two 1G connections via a switch and configure load-balancing, but SRX will do load-balancing per flow.

In practical terms that means that no single connection (flow) can exceed 1G. So if you start downloading a file from the internet, you'd never see speeds greater than 1G. But, if someone else on a different computer next to you starts downloading a file, too, there's a chance you'll both be downloading at 1G at the same time. There's also an equal chance that you'll both go at 0.5G, depending on how lucky you are with getting load-balanced into the same link or different links.

Overall, if you have lots of users using lots of computers, load-balancing could work out pretty well.

--------------

If you do decide to go load balancing, you have two options depending on the switch you use. If the switch supports link aggregation (LACP or not), then you can configure LAG on the SRX and your configuration will be much much simpler. And, bonus, you'll only consume 1 IP address. If the switch doesn't support link aggregation, then you'll have to do Layer 3 load-balancing on the SRX. Either way, both should work fine, but LAG is just much much simpler to configure. Actually, since it's a 5-port switch, with LAG you can just as easily bundle 4 links to the SRX, why not!

------------------------------
Nikolay Semov

Original Message:
Sent: 03-27-2024 16:51
From: bhrd
Subject: How to take advantage of a 2Gbps link with 1G SFPs?

Our ISP is providing 2Gbps internet via a 10G SFP+ but our SRX340 only has 1G SFP ports. Is it possible for me to use an intermediate 5-port switch with one 10G SFP+ port to connect to my ISP equipment, and use 2x 1G links to the SRX340 and still somehow take advantage of the 2Gbps speed? I imagine I would have to assign an IP address to each link and use some sort of load balancing, but before I get too deep I thought I'd ask if this is possible, whether there is a different way I should go about it, or if I should just continue to say goodbye to that extra 1Gbps of speed. 

Thanks in advance for any advice