Mushroom Networks Truffle

The Mushroom Networks Truffle is a Broadband Bonding router appliance offered by Mushroom Networks Inc. It is designed to enhance network performance, reliability, and application quality. According to the vendor, Truffle is targeted at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprise branch offices. It is sought after by IT managers, network administrators, telecommunications companies, healthcare organizations, financial institutions, and education institutions.

Key Features

Broadband Bonding: Truffle combines and manages multiple Internet transports from any service provider, aiming to ensure uninterrupted Internet services and applications. It allows for the addition of broadband lines to increase network capacity in a cost-effective manner.

Application Performance: Truffle aims to optimize Quality of Experience (QoE) for end users by shielding real-time applications from network problems. It offers built-in application flow steering and adaptive QoS to ensure smooth operation of critical applications.

MPLS Alternative: According to the vendor, Truffle provides a cost-effective solution to upgrade WAN networks by adding broadband bonding-based bandwidth to MPLS. It aims to offer better value without compromising performance, resulting in a quick Return on Investment (ROI) and reduced operating expenses.

WAN on Autopilot: Truffle's monitoring and automatic failover aim to protect against failures or degradations of WAN links. It keeps ongoing IP sessions alive through real-time per-packet routing decisions. Truffle also supports 4G LTE and 5G modems for failover.

Elastic Static IP: Truffle allows mapping of static IP addresses in the cloud or data center onto the branch office, aiming to ensure stable IP addressing for services like VPN and VoIP/SIP even during WAN outages.

Zero Touch Install & Management: According to the vendor, Truffle can be installed without any changes to existing firewall or network configurations. It supports zero-touch installation at the premises and offers a web-based management interface and cloud-based Portal for configuration and monitoring. Truffle also supports layer 7 DPI, SNMP, and Netflow.

Bonded WAN Speed: Truffle can bond Internet access lines, including encrypted traffic like VPN, for aggregated downlink and uplink capacity. When peered with another Truffle over the Internet, it aims to provide downlink/uplink bonding.

Traffic Shaping, Reservation & QoS: Truffle offers traffic shaping and bandwidth reservation capabilities on WAN and LAN interfaces. Its adaptive QoS features enable dynamic bandwidth reservations for selected applications and traffic types. Truffle also supports traffic manipulation based on TOS identifier, layer 7 filtering, and traffic blocking.

Network Security & Scalability: Truffle aims to seamlessly integrate with existing legacy firewalls/routers without requiring changes to the network configuration. It can function as the primary firewall/router with strong encryption, website blocking, DNS redirection, and advanced filtering. Truffle provides secure tunnels and supports VPN.

Routing & Firewalling: Truffle appliances offer full routing and firewall capabilities. They support advanced manual routes for specific types of traffic and can be installed in pass-through mode with existing network configurations.