How do I upgrade to the High Availablity Add-On? – Bigleaf Networks

Upgrading to the High Availability Add-On (formerly Premier) is easy, whether you’re moving from Standard Availability or no longer using switches in your Bigleaf HA deployment.

Review the High Availability Add-On features for Essential Service Plans.
Contact Bigleaf Sales or request a quote on the Bigleaf website.
Bigleaf Sales will create an amendment to your current plan and explain the new pricing and required equipment.
After you add High Availability, our Provisioning team will provide new site and IP addresses and Bigleaf routers.

Things to keep in mind when upgrading

Both Bigleaf routers need their own ISP connections

The High Availability Add-On includes two Bigleaf routers (primary and secondary).

Both routers must be actively connected to each WAN circuit and the corresponding ISP equipment.
Each WAN circuit must have a unique IP address for both Bigleaf routers.

If your ISP assigns a static /30 block for a WAN circuit, you may need a /29 block so both Bigleaf routers can have their own IP address. If your ISP uses DHCP, ensure it supports two IP addresses.

Both routers must be connected to the ISP equipment. Some ISP equipment has only one port. See Connecting the Bigleaf routers in a High Availability Add-On setup for workarounds and reference diagrams.

Upgrading to a High Availability environment

Upgrading from a /30 Bigleaf-provided IP block

The HA add-on requires a /29 Bigleaf-provided IP block or greater.

If the site you’re upgrading has a /30 IP block with a single Bigleaf router, we will provide the new /29 Bigleaf IP block as part of the upgrade sales order. Unfortunately, we cannot expand your current /30 IP block, you will get entirely new IP addresses.

Upgrading from a /29 IP block

If you currently have a /29 or larger IP block, we will migrate your current IP block to the new High Availability Add-On site.

This is typically done when ready to migrate to the new High Availability Add-On site and decommission the Bigleaf router from the old site.

When upgrading while keeping your /29 IP block, reserve three available addresses: two for the Bigleaf routers and one for the default gateway. In a High Availability Add-On setup, the first three sequential addresses are used by default, but they may already be assigned to other devices. Bigleaf Support can configure the routers to use other available addresses in your existing block. The example below shows three available IP addresses under Site Configuration > LAN Settings:

Adding a new Bigleaf High Availability Add-On site

If you add a new site that’s using a High Availability Add-On setup, you’ll receive two new Bigleaf routers that are provisioned under the new site’s name in Bigleaf Cloud Connect. The new site is listed in Cloud Connect when you receive a notification that the routers have shipped.

Connecting the Bigleaf routers in a High Availability Add-On tier setup

First review our High-Availability Install Instructions.

There are three different HA reference designs in the High Availability add-on plan, depending on your environment:

No switches – your ISPs support dual handoffs
Unmanaged switches – one or more of your ISPs do not support dual handoffs
Using switches to interconnect ISP connections and firewalls with the Bigleaf HA routers

Note: For #2, it can be any type of switch, but a simple unmanaged switch will suffice for individual ISP circuits.

1. Your ISPs support dual handoffs

If your ISPs support dual handoffs, and you can directly connect the Bigleaf routers to your firewalls, then you don’t need a switch.

This is our recommendation. It is a simple topology that is more resilient with predictable failure modes.

2. Your ISPs don’t support dual handoffs

If one of your ISPs does not support dual handoffs, you can place a switch between your ISP handoff and the Bigleaf router to provide multiple WAN connections.

Note: you can use the same switch for multiple ISP's, but you must segment ISP traffic using VLAN's, especially if one or more of them are DHCP-only.

3. Using a switch to interconnect ISP connections and firewalls with the Bigleaf HA routers

This configuration incorporates switches to allow for:

If an ISP does not support dual handoffs, you can place a switch between your ISP handoff and the Bigleaf router to provide multiple WAN connections.
Port density for LAN-side devices. Refer to Redundant LAN Port Connectivity when using Bigleaf HA for further reading.
LAG connections for LAN-side devices. Bigleaf routers do not support LAG or LACP.
Switch(es) between the Bigleaf routers and your firewalls must have Spanning-tree enabled. Refer to Troubleshooting Switching Loops with High Availability

Note: you could use one switch, multiple switches, or a switch stack to meet requirements for additional port density and redundancy. The diagram shows a pair of switches interconnected.