[c-nsp] Quick question about redundant connections.

[Drew Weaver]

        Hi there, I lurk here quite a bit and have even asked a few questions. I'm trying to figure out the best scheme for redundant connections on an ISP/provider network which is three tiered. The Internet Border, the aggregation layer, and the distribution layer (distribution layer is effectively the customer connection point).

I have tried coming up with ways to make the connections from the aggregation layer to the Internet Border layer totally redundant.

At the moment we're simply running multiple gig-e connections and using routes with hardware tags and the same priority to handle load sharing/redundancy.

I suppose I should get to the question portion :D

Anyway, we experienced an issue a few weeks back where one of our GSR12000s simply refused to do any IP routing, it was up, it was 'fine' for all intents and purposes but it simply wouldn't route traffic, none of the interfaces went down, so obviously the aggregation layer switches continued to attempt to send traffic 'through' this "dead" router.

I've done a little research and so far the only redundancy methods I have seen all tend to rely on the interfaces going down, what if the interface doesn't go down? What if, to the switches/routers downstream everything "appears" to be working?

Is there a particular scheme for downstream switches to verify that an upstream router is actually functioning "properly" on a periodic basis?

Also, when routing 'fails' on a gsr12000 would it help if we had a secondary route processor installed in the box? (i.e., would it take over?)

Sorry if this question is elementary, but we're doing a retrofit soon and I would like to nail down some different solutions.

Thanks,
Andrew