Member Avatar for joe_torres2020

We have a point to point connection going from a regional office to the main office this is provided by a Service Provider. In our office we have an ISP and what we need to prevent from happening is that if the internet drops from the ISP we could somehow re-direct the internet traffic through this point to point connection and make it so that our Internet connection is pulled from the main office. Is this possible, if so is any hardware needed? is it just a matter of re-configuring? please assist! Thank you.

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Short answer: yes — you can fail over branch Internet traffic across the point‑to‑point link to the main office, but it’s not just “flip a cable.” The branch must detect ISP failure and switch its default route to the PTP, and the main office must NAT/route that traffic out its ISP and return the responses. That requires router features (route tracking/IP SLA or equivalent, policy-based routing) and NAT/PAT on the main router, plus firewall rules and enough WAN capacity.

Example approach (illustrative Cisco IOS-style commands):

! Branch: monitor primary ISP and fail to PTP when unreachable
ip sla 1
 icmp-echo 8.8.8.8 source-interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 frequency 10
ip sla schedule 1 life forever start-time 0
track 1 ip sla 1 reachability
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 198.51.100.1 1 track 1   ! primary ISP
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.0.0.2 254            ! backup via PTP to main
! Main: NAT branch subnet so Internet replies return via main ISP
interface Serial0/0
 ip nat outside
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
 ip nat inside
access-list 100 permit ip 192.168.10.0 0.0.0.255 any
ip nat inside source list 100 interface Serial0/0 overload

Quick checklist and caveats: verify the PTP bandwidth/latency for production traffic; update firewall ACLs so the main allows/inspects branch-originated flows; test failover and NAT translations; expect broken inbound services at the branch (public-hosted servers need DNS changes or reverse proxy), and be aware some apps (VoIP, geo-IP checks, VPNs) may behave differently when traffic egresses via the main public IP. If your Cisco Small Business box lacks route‑tracking or NAT flexibility, you’ll need a router/firewall that does.

— this gives the architectural path you can use instead of buying a second branch ISP. and raised the right tradeoffs: software or extra ISP are alternatives; choose the option that fits cost, complexity, and application requirements.

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Member Avatar for jingda

Can you explain your situation using punctuation as well. I can hardly understand, sorry for the inconvenice.

So can you access internet? Which office can access internet? Main office or Regional Office? State other networking problem also

Member Avatar for joe_torres2020

sorry for the in-proper english hopefully this will be better.

I have a leased line that provides ptp connection to Main office

In branch office I have an Internet Provider A

In Main office I have an Internet Provider B

I am currently in the Main office what we need is to set up a failover solution with a cisco small business rt. (don't know if that is a possibility)

In case that our ISP drops we need to be able to keep an active connection to the Internet.

Therefore we need to know if if is possible to re-route Network Traffic using the ptp so that our internet requests are pulled from the Branch office ISP

Member Avatar for jingda

so you need help in setting up a failover solution to prevent your internet server from crashing and still have internet access, right?

--> Therefore we need to know if if is possible to re-route Network Traffic using the ptp so that our internet requests are pulled from the Branch office ISP

I am not sure about that. Are you looking for a hardware or virtualisation failover solution? Are you using DNS failover or others?

there are many softwares out there that can do this.

Edited by jingda because: n/a
Member Avatar for joe_torres2020

I've been looking over this all weekend and came to a dead end on re-directing the NT traffic through the leased line.

I've come to see that a failover can be done but there must be two ISPs.

The solution I've managed to come up with as a failover has been to get an on demand ISP and also keep our regular ISP, that way if the regular ISP fails we then will use our on-demand ISP to provide the internet service.

We will be avoiding a monthly rent and still have a back up solution.

I hope that now getting the on-demand service will not be too much of a hastle! Thanks Jingda for your support :)

Member Avatar for jingda

You are welcome. Also, a software can also provided internet connection to you when your first ISP is done but its much costly than having another ISP. Good luck:)

Member Avatar for fearnowrath

You sound a bit vague. But the way you suggest will require you to have two internet connections separately. It may not be a very good practice in the long run to solve your problem.

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