Monitoring and testing outbound traffic management

You can monitor the status of the NetLinks in the Secure SD-WAN Dashboard. NetLinks are shown as ISP connections.

Status is displayed based on the results of status probes to the Probing addresses configured in the NetLink elements.

You can test that the outbound traffic management configuration works as intended by generating traffic and then disabling network connections, for example, by unplugging cables. In a cluster, you can disable the same link on all active nodes to simulate ISP failure.

Note: By default, if you unplug a cable from a node in a cluster, the automatic Engine tester recognizes this as a malfunction and turns the node offline unless it is the last node that remains online. To override this automatic test, command all nodes to “Lock Online” before the test. After the tests, command the notes to "Online".

Most active connections on a failed link are terminated and must be reopened by the communicating applications, as the external IP address changes to that of the new link. Any traffic transported through a Multi-Link VPN between two Engines can switch to a different link transparently.

With the Ratio-based load-balancing method, a link remains active until a failure is detected through link status probes to the addresses configured in the NetLink elements. With the Round Trip Time method, new connections are directed to working links by selecting the fastest responding link, even if probing is not configured or operational.