can a unifi switch handle multiple wan connections

[intertan]

Take 2 isp connections. 1 ftth and one cable.  can I hook up the isp1 to port 1 on the switch isp 2 to port 2 on the switch and have all odd ports be isp1 and even ports be isp2?

 

Or would I need 2 seperate switches

[Alex Atkin UK]

Assuming you have a router for each of those connections and its a managed switch (which I believe it is) then you should be able to assign each router to a different VLAN on the Switch and assign specific ports to each router based on those VLANs.

 

Just be sure the traffic coming out of the ports is not tagged, you only need the VLAN tags internally in the Switch to tell it which port goes to which router.

 

I have never done it personally but its pretty much the whole point of a managed Switch.

[intertan]

5 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Assuming you have a router for each of those connections and its a managed switch (which I believe it is) then you should be able to assign each router to a different VLAN on the Switch and assign specific ports to each router based on those VLANs.

 

Just be sure the traffic coming out of the ports is not tagged, you only need the VLAN tags internally in the Switch to tell it which port goes to which router.

 

I have never done it personally but its pretty much the whole point of a managed Switch.

don't have much experience with managed switches. 

[Windows7ge]

You can do this with vlans if you want to manage both networks with one switch. Is there any particular reason you're doing it this way? Assuming you only need 10 or so ports per network it's generally cheaper to buy two unmanaged switches. This also offers a little fault tolerance.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On the other hand, half the power cables and if one connection went down you could just login to the Switch UI and move everything over to the other connection without faffing with plugs.   So I can certainly see the benefits too.

[intertan]

40 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

You can do this with vlans if you want to manage both networks with one switch. Is there any particular reason you're doing it this way? Assuming you only need 10 or so ports per network it's generally cheaper to buy two unmanaged switches. This also offers a little fault tolerance.

more curiosity, I also have multiple colored ports around my house

Could use the blue jacks for isp1 and the orange jacks for isp 2.

[brwainer]

3 hours ago, intertan said:

more curiosity, I also have multiple colored ports around my house

Could use the blue jacks for isp1 and the orange jacks for isp 2.

 

if you connect all the blue ports to ports on the switch that are part of the ISP-1-LAN and all the orange jacks to ports that are part of the ISP-2-LAN then yes. This is a manual thing - the switch has no idea what you are connecting downstream of it.

[Windows7ge]

13 hours ago, intertan said:

more curiosity, I also have multiple colored ports around my house

Could use the blue jacks for isp1 and the orange jacks for isp 2.

Well it'll work. I have a Ubiquiti 16 port full 10Gbit switch and if you're using the WebUI you can setup profiles. These profiles can be assigned VLANs you then select a series of interfaces on the switch and assign it to the profile.

 

You could also do it via CLI but I don't know the commands.

[brwainer]

1 hour ago, Windows7ge said:

Well it'll work. I have a Ubiquiti 16 port full 10Gbit switch and if you're using the WebUI you can setup profiles. These profiles can be assigned VLANs you then select a series of interfaces on the switch and assign it to the profile.

 

You could also do it via CLI but I don't know the commands.

Do you have a Unifi switch, or an EdgeSwitch? That makes a huge difference. OP asked about Unifi and that doesn’t have its own WebUI - unless you’re referring to the Unifi controller as a WebUI which I guess it technically is.

[tscanausa]

I think using a unifi switch will be pretty difficult to manage and add a lot of complete that it appears you dont want to manage.

 

I would recommend the unifi USG that has the ability to have to network ports. I would also swap the ISP routers into bridge mode that that is not required if both ISPs use different gateway IP addresses.

Quick Ascii Disgram

                                              ____________

ISP 1 -> ISP Router 1 ------> | wan port 1    |

                                              | USG             |

ISP 2 -> ISP Router 2 ------> | wan port 2    |

                                              |      lan port 1 | ------------> Unifi Switch
                                              |___________| 

[Windows7ge]

8 hours ago, brwainer said:

Do you have a Unifi switch, or an EdgeSwitch? That makes a huge difference. OP asked about Unifi and that doesn’t have its own WebUI - unless you’re referring to the Unifi controller as a WebUI which I guess it technically is.

I did think about this because you're right. Mines not the Edge series so it does require downloadable software to remote manage it. Using the software it opens it in a web browser through Java I believe so I call it a WebUI.

 

I don't understand why both series aren't normal WebUI's. It'd be so much easier to manage. Wouldn't have to install software on every machine you want to manage it with.

[brwainer]

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I did think about this because you're right. Mines not the Edge series so it does require downloadable software to remote manage it. Using the software it opens it in a web browser through Java I believe so I call it a WebUI.

 

I don't understand why both series aren't normal WebUI's. It'd be so much easier to manage. Wouldn't have to install software on every machine you want to manage it with.

They are targeted at different use cases, although for the switches and routers they share similar or identical hardware.

 

Edgerouter and Edgeswitch are full featured devices managed in the traditional way - CLI over SSH or serial, with a basic WebUI running directly on each device. They have no interaction with each other, and you don’t gain any special abilities by having both an Edgerouter and an Edgeswitch.

 

Unifi is a single-pane-of-glass system that UNIFIes switch, router, and AP configuration into a single tool. When you want to create a new SSID running on its own VLAN with access to the internet but not to your other existing networks, Unifi will take care of setting that network up on the router, switches, and APs all at the same time. The Unifi controller itself (the Java software that runs the WebUI) also provides its own features like a guest network portal to authenticate guests and even possibly charge for network use, and the option to remotely monitor and administer the system though the Unifi Cloud. The downside of Unifi is that some particular features they have on their Edge series devices aren’t present or took many years to be added, because the features have to be reimplemented for the combined system.

 

The category Unifi falls into is known as Software Defined Networking (SDN), and there isn’t any other competitor that offers this - enterprise companies like Meraki and Ruckus have SDN and SDN is comon in datacenters, but those aren’t markets where Ubiquiti operates. The competitors to Ubiquiti are Mikrotik for WISP and prosumer networking, and a number of small companies that do networking equipment oriented towards AV Systems installers, and none of them have something like Unifi. Mikrotik has a wireless controller called CAPsMAN but that only controls the wireless parts of APs and nothing else.

 

People use EdgeRouter and EdgeSwitch when they either want one of the features not available in the Unifi line, they prefer the traditional setup methods especially CLI, or they want to play with the newest hardware. New products like the recent 10Gb switches first come out as Edge devices before the Unifi version is released.

 

Unifi is suitable when you want a single management interface, and/or especially if administration duties are going to be shared with someone who is not as technical with device configuration. As long as you don’t need the few features that Unifi lacks, it is really nice to look at an all-Unifi network. 

 

One common network setup is to use Unifi switches and APs, but something non-Unifi for routing, either an EdgeRouter, Mikrotik, PFsense, or whatever. While you do lose a lot of features from Unifi by not having a USG, alternative routers can probide a lot of their own functionality that a USG doesn’t.

[Windows7ge]

@brwainer For my own network I just picked what looked the best for the least cost. The Ubiquiti US-16-XG. A managed full 10Gbit switch. As far as features go I'm not doing anything more advanced than jumbo packets & vlans since its running multiple networks and I don't need broadcasts among other communications going to clients on other networks. Stop it at the switch. Prior to the switch the two networks were PPP on a /30 subnet so I couldn't add more clients at 10Gbit.

 

I do have plans to get a 48 port Gigabit switch from Ubiquiti and I'll probably buy the unifi version again just because I don't need the most advanced features I'll probably just setup vlans if that. I don't plan on buying a unifi gateway. I'd like to build a pfsense box. I might look into unifi APs. Ubiquiti has found a way to get this gear at a price point where prosumers are willing to spend. I can't imagine buying a new 16 port 10Gbit switch made by CISCO. I can only imagine the number of 0's.