Redundant LAN Port Connectivity when using Bigleaf HA

Bigleaf’s Premier High Availability (HA) service tier has two default LAN connections: a port from the primary Bigleaf router and a port from the secondary Bigleaf router. You may need to deploy your own switch(es) if your requirements are not met by the two default LAN ports.

Note: you can use one switch, multiple switches, or a switch stack to meet requirements for additional port density and redundancy. In this article, we will refer to these options as a "switch".

Some Bigleaf routers also have expansion (EXP) ports that are unused by default, which you can configure as extra LAN ports. For configuring EXP ports, see All about Expansion (EXP) Ports. Also see how to troubleshoot and avoid introducing switching loops to learn about loop prevention when using more than one Bigleaf router LAN port on the same switch.

This article provides information about using Bigleaf’s HA solution with your own switch in these instances:

• Port density configuration when using two or more LAN ports
• Using a link aggregation group (LAG)

Port density configuration

When connecting more than one Bigleaf LAN port to your switch, please ensure it supports Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to prevent loops. You can connect both LAN ports into your switch and configure up to all EXP ports as LAN ports.

Devices downstream from the switch will have access to the Default Gateway IP address shown in the Site Configuration -> LAN Settings page in Bigleaf Cloud Connect.

It is unnecessary to configure and connect your devices to forward traffic through the primary Bigleaf router, as the Bigleaf HA routers are active/active. The primary and secondary routers can both actively forwarding traffic, and the Router2Router (R2R) port will trunk traffic between the Bigleaf routers as needed.

Please ensure that in a failure scenario, if either the primary or secondary Bigleaf router fail, none of your switches or devices are isolated without connectivity to the remaining Bigleaf router.

Using LAG

LAG is a method of grouping multiple ports into a virtual link with aggregated bandwidth. The Bigleaf router LAN ports do not support bonding or LAG.

If your devices require LAG, we advise using a switch connected to each Bigleaf router with 1 or more LAN ports configured. See an example diagram below.

Note: STP will likely place 3 of the Bigleaf router LAN ports in blocking or discarding state to ensure a loop-free topology. If your Bigleaf site is 2Gbps or 3Gbps, please ensure your LAN and R2R ports are 2.5Gbps or 10Gbps ports. You cannot rely on multiple Bigleaf LAN ports at 1Gbps to support multi-gig speeds, as STP on your switch will place them in blocking or discarding state.