Hands On: Syswan Duolinks SW24 VPN High Performance Dual WAN Router

LOAD BALANCING

The SW24 VPN router is classified as a dual WAN router.  The translation is if one happens to have 2 Broadband connections, you can connect both to the SW24 router.  Per Syswan, “This design feature allows for intelligent load balancing to maximize the available bandwidth while managing and prioritizing traffic flow for fast and redundant Internet connectivity.”

While this feature may not be high priority for many consumer home networks, there may be some of you out there that have a SOHO and may need the redundancy and load balancing capabilities of the SW24 VPN router.

I only have one incoming Internet connection, so this is not a feature that I can check out.  But it is an important feature (for some) and it is something that needs to be pointed out for those who might need it or is looking for such a device.

VPN

VPN: Virtual Private Network.  Per Wikipedia, “A virtual private network (VPN) is a computer network in which the links between nodes are formed over logical connections or virtual circuits between hosts of a larger network, such as the Internet.”  That definition sure goes right over my head!  Reading further, you will find a more practical definition: “VPN(s) are often installed by organizations to provide remote access to a secure organizational network…”

I prefer to look at it this way: through the magic of a VPN, one can directly log on a computer in a network (your home network, for example) with the equivalent of a Remote Desktop Connection through an Internet connection.

I did not attempt to set up a VPN connection.  Syswan offers (3) SW24 models with varying degrees of VPN capabilities.  If VPN is high on your feature list, I would suggest you call or email Syswan to get a satisfactory explanation of the VPN feature set these models.  Please refer to the following Product Comparison chart to get an idea of the VPN feature set available with each SW24 model.

For those readers out there who do have a SOHO, VPN is a valuable feature to have to access data on a computer back at the “office”.  The SW24 offers the same pass through feature set that many consumer-grade routers offer, while the SW24 VPN and SW24 VPN+ offer increased security that a consumer-grade router cannot hope to duplicate.