Branch Routers Guide

Resilience

A resilient branch is able to continue operating and delivering core services—even if in a degraded state—during adverse events and complete outages. Branch routers can contribute to network resilience in several important ways.

1. Cellular failover: A branch router with cellular failover provides a secondary internet connection that traffic can be routed to if the primary link goes down. Even better, a router with 5G cellular failover delivers speeds comparable to a standard cable internet connection to minimize the performance impacts of a branch ISP outage.
2. Out-of-band management: A branch router with OOB management uses a secondary internet connection and managed serial ports to create a parallel network that’s dedicated to management, troubleshooting, and orchestration. This network doesn’t rely on any production resources, so it remains available and remotely accessible during outages, ransomware attacks, and other adverse events. OOB provides a lifeline for teams to perform remote recovery operations, significantly reducing downtime.
3. Alternative compute and storage: Some branch routers come with enough storage, processing, and memory headroom to run additional workloads while primary resources are down. These routers allow branches to continue delivering their most critical services while teams focus on recovery operations, and they cost significantly less to deploy than redundant server hardware.
4. Automation: Some branch routers—particularly those with managed serial ports—also provide zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) to automatically configure end devices. ZTP and other automation solutions accelerate new deployments and recovery rebuilds while mitigating the risk of human error.

Automation

Network and infrastructure automation can help accelerate new deployments, improve branch operational efficiency, mitigate human error and other security risks, and improve resilience. We’ve already described how branch routers can provide these benefits with ZTP. The best routers also support integrations with 3rd party software for automated security monitoring, configuration management, troubleshooting, and more. Some solutions, like the Nodegrid integrated branch routers from ZPE Systems, can also directly host other vendors’ software, allowing teams to deploy branch automation without installing any additional hardware.

While there are a variety of branch routers that provide SD-WAN support, out-of-band management, cellular failover, and advanced authentication, there’s only one branch networking solution that also delivers complete vendor neutrality, enabling unlimited extensibility and automation.

Nodegrid Net Services Router for large branches and edge data centers

The Nodegrid Net Services Router (NSR) is a modular solution that adjusts to your business’s needs, making it suitable for many different use cases. You can mix-and-match NSR expansion cards to gain branch networking and management capabilities like serial console management, GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) and PoE (Power over Ethernet) switching, Wi-Fi, 4G/5G cellular, PON (passive optical networking), additional compute or storage, and more. The NSR’s size and potential number of ports means you could also deploy it in data centers and other large deployment sites.

Nodegrid Bold SR for branch and edge deployments

The Nodegrid Bold SR is a small, versatile branch solution that’s suited to a wide variety of deployments, including telecom sites, retail stores, and oil and gas rigs. Despite its size, it has 8 managed serial ports and 5 GbE switch ports, can run up to two Docker apps, and supports up to two dual-SIM cellular cards for failover and OOB.

Nodegrid Mini SR for branch IoT, OT, and IoMD deployments

The Nodegrid Mini SR delivers all-in-one branch capabilities in a device roughly the size of a smartphone. It can be installed nearly anywhere, including OT (operational technology) environments, IoT and IoMD (Internet of Medical Devices, also known as IoMT or Internet of Medical Things) deployments, and even first responder vehicles.