Compute Efficient Application Identification and Policy Based Routing Now Available!

We wanted to share a major milestone we achieved, making generally available to our compute efficient L3/L4 application identification and policy based routing (Path Selection). This version also brings an improved flexiManage UI, among many other fixes and updates. See the full list of changes in the 1.3.1 release notes.

Existing users can update their installs from flexiManage’s Devices page by simply selecting their devices and clicking on Update from the actions menu. New users can sign up here; make sure to check system requirements and follow the installation instructions here.

What to Expect From This New Version?

The highlight of flexiWAN version 1.3.1 is Path Selection, bringing application based routing to flexiWAN. With Path Selection, users can create policies and configure how outgoing traffic is routed.



Path Selection utilizes the following capabilities included in flexiWAN:

• Application Identification: A built-in and continuously updated database of hundreds of L3/L4 IP ranges and application ports. This includes ranges of all major and popular online services as well as popular applications and ports they use. The system also allows for custom applications to be added by the user, so if a specific service or application is missing, users can add it to their account
• Policies: Here, users can decide through which interface all or certain traffic will be routed by creating rules with the above-mentioned Application Identifications. Policies also include another major improvement, traffic load balancing and failover/priority routing.
• Path Selection: Relies on previously introduced Path Labels. Policies are applied by using Path Labels assigned to tunnels or internet breakout / Direct Internet Access (DIA).



With Path Selection, it is now possible to create policies for multiple use cases:

• Load balancing: Routing and load balancing all or specific traffic across multiple interfaces
• Link failover: With multiple WAN links available, the system will automatically move traffic from one connection to the other in case of link failure
• Importance-based routing: Policy routing all important traffic across primary connection fiber connection, while all other traffic uses coaxial connection
• Application-based routing: Policy routes popular social media sites and services such as Facebook, WhatsApp, or Viber. Route all media traffic, such as YouTube and Netflix, through secondary internet links, while primary is used only for business-related traffic
• Application or IP-based blocking: it is now possible to utilize Path Selection to block outgoing traffic per IP or port. Blocking can utilize predefined Application Identifications and block many popular services with it

Check out our documentation to learn more details on Path Selection.

In addition to these two major features, there are several additional new features that we added to flexiWAN. These include:

• Device search: Filtering or sorting on the devices page. Filter existing devices by device name, status, system version, or several other attributes. Combining multiple search attributes is also supported!
• Gateways for WAN interfaces: It’s now possible to define gateways per each of WAN interfaces. As flexiWAN supports multiple WAN interfaces, now it also supports multiple WAN gateways
• Batch tunnel deletion: Multiple tunnels can be deleted with just a few clicks
• And even more: Many more small fixes and updates, which are covered in the release notes

Check out our Feature Overview section to learn more about the key currently available features in flexiWAN, as well as the upcoming features. Upgrading flexiWAN should be pretty straightforward and in just a few clicks, but feel free to contact us in case of issues or say hi on our community forums.