Desktop·25,135 discussions

Multiple DSL load balancing

Locked

My comapany wants to build a VPN with multiple DSL lines from different vendors to allow for redundancy and load balancing. Has anyone out there done this, and what are the ins and outs of this type of system. We want to keep the solution as cheapas possible, and have the system notify a manager when one of the lines is down. Can any one help?

Topic

Multiple DSL load balancing

In reply to Multiple DSL load balancing

There are three parts to your question and two are easy. System notification can be done with a product like WhatsUp, Compaq Insight Manager, etc. and notification can be to an alpha pager, e-mail or both. Cheap, easy to configure, works well.

The redundancy part works well, except in the case of any parts of the circuit that are common. You could have three DSL vendors, but the “last mile” of wire is still likely to be your local telco so you still have a single point of failure. But forthe software related outages such as those that plagued MCI last year, having another vendor works well.

The tough part to accomplish cheaply is the load-balancing and automatic fail-over. You can certainly get this capability in a router but itwon’t come cheaply. Whether that is worthwhile depends on the service level you require – if you can tolerate short outages while a manual route is changed, you can do that. If not, you need to look at a router with the capability you need.

Hope this provides some

Multiple DSL load balancing

In reply to Multiple DSL load balancing

Poster rated this answer

Multiple DSL load balancing

In reply to Multiple DSL load balancing

a router capable of BGP will fulfill your needs, but you will need to make sure that since you are using 2 routers they are in the same peer group. Also you will need to be aware based on the type of VPN you are running that load loadbalancing may not be possible because of router encryption or the like. un less you are running the VPN behind the routers.

Multiple DSL load balancing

In reply to Multiple DSL load balancing

Poster rated this answer

Multiple DSL load balancing

In reply to Multiple DSL load balancing

In addition to the DSL CPE, you place a router with 3 Ethernet ports of appropriate speed to load balance the traffic and failover if necessary.

The reporting part is easy and can be done with shareware or commercial packages with many different types of notification.

The main consideration for fault tolerance is (as stated in post #1) the last mile will most likely be provided by one carrier providing a single point of failure.

The “best practice” solution to your issue is point to point, frame relay, or atm SVCs on multiple routed serial interfaces or ISDN DDR interfaces. Ultimately you would have redundant layer three switches to handle these connections.

Good luck.

Multiple DSL load balancing

In reply to Multiple DSL load balancing

Poster rated this answer

Multiple DSL load balancing

In reply to Multiple DSL load balancing

This question was closed by the author

[Author]

Replies