Technology White Paper

SitePathMTPX:
Point to Point Resilience
for Applications over
Internet/WAN
Connections

Build Smarter Networks

SitePathMPTX White Paper

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary.................................................................................................................................. 3

2. Overview of the Problem ......................................................................................................................... 3

3. SitePathMTPX Operating Principles ...................................................................................................... 4

4. SitePathMTPX Balancing Algorithms .................................................................................................... 6

5. SitePath as its Own Failover – Mesh Networks ................................................................................... 7

6. Customer Scenario: Victrix ...................................................................................................................... 8

7. Return on Investment versus Downtime-related Losses.................................................................... 8

8. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 9

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 2 www.elfiq.com

SitePathMPTX White Paper

1. Executive Summary

Point to point applications have been a part of the information technology space for a very long time,
and they have evolved into essential business services where key activities depend on them on a
daily basis. Commonly found point to point applications in business organizations include branch
office virtual private network tunnels, voice over IP deployments, file transfer systems and business
continuity/disaster recovery projects.

2. Overview of the Problem

Internet access is the commonly preferred communication vector employed by organizations for its
affordability and availability. As discussed in the “Business Continuity: Proactive Telecom Strategies
for Decision Makers” White Paper published by Elfiq Networks, public ISP links are expected to suffer
failure on a regular basis, and contingency planning is key to continual and normal operations.

When point to point applications are operating on these links and they suffer either significant
congestion or downtime, key applications such as accessing an organization’s ERP system, email,
internal Web services and many more are unavailable for the duration of the issue. Depending on
the duration, the impact can prove to be mild for a few minutes but in many cases severe, where
connection losses measured in days can result in significant financial losses. In such cases, orders
cannot be processed easily, employee productivity is taxed with unplanned events and customer
relationships may suffer as a result of downtime.

The reason for such issues is that a single ISP link is utilized to serve the bandwidth for point to point
applications, and in this context the potential points of failure are summed because they have to be
accounted for at each end point. So when an ISP link fails at one end, both ends stop
communicating, and should one end point suffer from saturation, the other end suffers the same
result.

In the context of many to one environments, where multiple sites connect to a central site, the
central site becomes the strategic point of failure, where, should it fail or suffer bandwidth
degradation, all the satellite sites connected to it will suffer a loss of service at the same time for the
same period, causing significant productivity degradation and potential financial losses.

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 3 www.elfiq.com

SitePathMPTX White Paper

3. SitePathMTPX Operating Principles

To simplify the following discussion from this point on, the context of VPNs
through firewalls will be used. Please note that any point to point application such
as file transfer or VoIP will benefit equally from SitePathMTPX. Also, the context
will involve two end points and two routers to simplify the discussion, but
SitePathMTPX can handle multiple sites depending on the model.

SitePathMTPX from Elfiq Networks is an innovative approach to resolving both performance and
downtime issues experienced by organizations for point to point applications. At its core, Elfiq’s
Layer-2 implementation provides a seamless , transparent installation of the Elfiq Link Balancers in
a customer environment without reconfiguring existing network devices residing on the carrier side
of the network (WAN), namely firewalls, VPN gateways and routers.

From the point of view of the firewall, there is no change

whatsoever so it transacts with the Elfiq Link Balancer as if it
was the original router, but the Elfiq handles the original
router as well as the additional ones. This “original link”
configuration concept is known as the “primary link” in the
Elfiq environment and is a key concept in the product’s
design.

Once both sites have the Elfiq unit in place, without any
modifications the VPN tunnel between the firewalls can
resume as it was before through each site’s primary link.

Each connection between each ISP connected to each Elfiq Link Balancer is called a SitePath, and a
SitePath Group is the sum of SitePaths connected to another site.

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 4 www.elfiq.com

SitePathMPTX White Paper

Elfiq Link Balancers can now be used to their full potential to strengthen the VPN tunnel by
exchanging SitePath information about real-time traffic information handled though each router in
place on both ends. Once this exchange is configured and set into action, multiple routers can be
used to transmit data from one end to another, providing two key benefits:

1. Performance enhancement: since both units exchange link metrics, based on the selected
algorithm, the fastest available link can be selected to improve overall performance,
eliminating the saturation bottleneck often experienced in VPNs. This performance
improvement operates in both directions of the SitePathMTPX relationship.

2. Resilience: should an ISP link fail, the local Elfiq unit will re-adjust the traffic flow to the
available link(s) to ensure continuity and communicate to the other unit the change in
available links, preventing a cancellation of the VPN session between the two sites and
guaranteeing normal continuous operations even with an unavailable link. When the
defective link returns to normal, it gets re-added to the list of links selected for
SitePathMTPX.

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 5 www.elfiq.com

SitePathMPTX White Paper

In the SitePathMTPX feature, the concept of a SitePath is one of the colored lines in the diagrams
above, while a SitePath Group is all the SitePaths connected to another site. A single unit can have
more than one SitePath Group connecting to multiple remote sites.

Another function of SitePathMTPX is the ability to provide quality of service (QoS) for its traffic, to
ensure enough bandwidth is available to provide the required service and also to prevent
overutilization of the bandwidth by SitePathMTPX in certain contexts to ensure optimal bandwidth
distribution.

Unlike other technologies, this is transparent for any type of point to point traffic, where
no VPN tunnel is created between each router, thus simplifying network design,
consuming fewer resources and being completely agnostic. Also, SitePathMTPX tunnels
can be encrypted in AES128 should the point to point application require a higher level
of security but none exists.

4. SitePathMTPX Balancing Algorithms

One of the key advantages and a unique feature of SitePathMTPX is the ability to select one of four
algorithms designed for this particular functionality:

1- Weight First Algorithm (WFA): this algorithm will use a SitePath based on its weight and
available bandwidth.
2- Best SitePath First (BSFA): this algorithm selects the most appropriate SitePath based on
statistics and cumulative metrics to select the path with the most available bandwidth.
3- Round Trip Time First Algorithm (RTFA): this algorithm dynamically selects the SitePath based
on round trip times (RTT) of packets.

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 6 www.elfiq.com

SitePathMPTX White Paper

4- Multiplexing (MTPX): this algorithm enables bandwidth virtualization by aggregating multiple

paths into one virtual path for increased throughput. It requires links of similar specifications
and performance for optimal use.

5. SitePath as its Own Failover – Mesh Networks

On any Elfiq Link Balancer, SitePathMTPX enables at least two SitePath Groups to connect to
multiple sites. Should more sites, such as business continuity sites, be interconnected in a
centralized environment, SitePathMTPX can be used to “mesh” point to point applications in mission-
critical environments.

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 7 www.elfiq.com

SitePathMPTX White Paper

6. Customer Scenario: Victrix

Victrix is an IT solution provider that decided to invest in deploying multiple ISPs across their sites to
improve performance and reliability. Having deployed more expensive 10Mbps fiber circuits at their
primary sites, they required more throughput and redundancy through carrier technology
combinations. With SitePathMTPX, the office to office connectivity issues of saturation and
occasional ISP link downtime were eliminated, and DSL/cable modems were used to enhance the
redundancy of the solution, so if one carrier network is unavailable another should be ready to take
over the tasks until service is restored.

A full case study is available at www.elfiq.com.

7. Return on Investment versus Downtime-related Losses

Since every organization is different, this metric can be either simple or complex to measure. Key
items commonly used to determine the return on investment of a bandwidth improvement should
include:
number of outages in the last year with duration
number of significantly degraded periods in the last year
financial losses/lost sales due to downtime
average productivity losses per employee per outage
metric for existing links before and after implementation
cost of each available ISP link.

Elfiq provides a free ROI calculation tool at www.elfiq.com, so organizations can start building
estimates based on these calculations.

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 8 www.elfiq.com

SitePathMPTX White Paper

8. Conclusion

Point to point applications such as VPNs and VoIP have become not only commonplace but also
critical to ensure normal business operations. To alleviate the two core issues of downtime and
saturation in such deployments, Elfiq’s SitePathMTPX feature provides a creative, robust, simple and
non-intrusive answer to bringing performance and resilience to any organization in a very cost-
effective manner.

Produced by Elfiq Networks

Elfiq Networks is a technology leader and innovator in the field of WAN link management and
balancing. With successful installations in over 50 countries, Elfiq’s Link Balancer products help
organizations of any type and size perform more competitively every day with the ability to use
multiple Internet and private links easily and securely.

For more information on Elfiq Networks’ products and technologies, please contact:

Elfiq Networks
1155 University, #712
Montreal, Quebec, H3B 3A7
Canada
Telephone: 888-GO-ELFIQ/514-667-0611
Internet: www.elfiq.com
Email: info@elfiq.com

May 2009

© Copyright 2009, Elfiq Networks (Elfiq Inc.). The contents of this document are protected by copyright. Any modification of this document, in any shape or
form, is prohibited. Any redistribution, publication or derivation of the contents of this document without written authorization from Elfiq is also prohibited.
All rights reserved.

© 2009 Elfiq Networks. All rights reserved 9 www.elfiq.com