Policy Route

PBR (Policy-Based Routing) enables precise control over network traffic by defining routing policies based on criteria like source/destination IP addresses or layer 4 port numbers. This capability resolves challenges related to inefficient network resource management, providing organizations with greater flexibility and control over traffic routing and optimization.

Benifits

• By defining routing policies, you can route traffic over preferred network paths, prioritize certain types of traffic, or balance traffic across multiple links for load balancing and optimization purposes.

• PBR can be used to implement Quality of Service (QoS) policies to prioritize critical traffic types, such as voice or video communications, over less time-sensitive traffic.

How to configure

You can access this page through Configure > Gateway > Interface > Policy Route

Layer 7 Policy-base Route

You can create policy-based routing rules to direct specific applications to different WAN interfaces without specifying IP addresses or port ranges

The Benefits

Optimized Traffic Management: Direct critical applications to a primary WAN while routing less important traffic to a secondary WAN

Enhanced Network Performance: Improve network efficiency by balancing load between WAN interfaces based on application

Simplified Rule Management: No need to update routing rules for changing IP addresses or port ranges

Application Example

Enterprises are increasingly relying on SaaS services such as Gmail, Windows 365, and CRM tools like Salesforce.com, making these services more critical than other internet traffic that it is better to separate the traffic from others. In this scenario, users can strategize as follows:

1. Designate WAN1 as the primary WAN and WAN2 as the failover WAN, with most traffic routed through WAN1

2. Route business-critical SaaS traffic, such as Gmail, Windows 365, and Salesforce.com, through WAN2

How to configure

The figure below illustrates layer 7 policy-based routing rules for directing entire categories and specific applications within a category to different WAN interfaces

Go to Configure > Gateway > Interfaces > Policy Routes > Layer 7> Add Rule

Better to know

PBR preference uplink is WAN1 and WAN2 only

Failover order options are as follows:

Option WAN1: WAN1 is the preferred uplink, followed by WAN2 and then WWAN.

Option WAN2: WAN2 is the preferred uplink, followed by WAN1 and then WWAN.

Note: PRB fail-over will NOT refer to the "Fail-over preference" order set in WWAN (Configure > WWAN > Failover Preference)