Designing a Highly Available Internet Edge
Dual paths, dual routers and automatic failover — the building blocks of an internet connection that rarely goes down.
High availability is designed, not bought. A fast leased line terminating on a single router in a single server room still has multiple single points of failure. Here are the building blocks of an internet edge that rarely goes down.
Diverse physical paths
Two fiber routes entering the building from different directions, travelling via different streets and connecting to different network nodes. This protects against the most common cause of outages: fiber cuts during construction work.
Redundant edge devices
Two routers or firewalls in an active-standby or active-active pair. If one fails or needs maintenance, the other takes over automatically.
Failover protocols
- VRRP gives your internal network a single virtual gateway address shared by two routers.
- BGP allows traffic to move between providers or paths automatically, and lets you announce your own IP space.
Power resilience
Network equipment should run on UPS-backed power with generator backup. Dual power supplies on critical devices connected to separate circuits remove another single point of failure.
Internal network redundancy
Core switches, cabling to critical servers and Wi-Fi controllers should also be redundant. An excellent internet edge is wasted if a single switch failure isolates users.
Monitoring and alerting
24/7 monitoring of links, devices and failover status ensures that when one component fails, it is repaired quickly — before a second failure causes an outage.
Regular testing
Schedule failover drills during quiet periods. Confirm that applications, VPNs, voice and security services continue working on the backup path.
Documentation
Keep up-to-date diagrams, configurations and runbooks so engineers can act quickly during incidents.
The bottom line
Each layer of redundancy removes a single point of failure. Together, diverse paths, redundant devices, resilient power and regular testing deliver the uptime critical sites need.
Learn more about Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) from UbiFi, or talk to our team.
Premium dedicated internet with dual last-mile, managed router, firewall and DDoS protection — engineered for mission-critical sites.
