[c-nsp] Need some guidance for T1 / wireless ethernet handoff load balancing/failover setup

[Seth Mattinen]

Scott Lambert wrote:
> I have a customer who went directly to cisco to ask about how to load
> balance two WAN connections to their Cisco PIX 515E.  Cisco sold them an
> ASA 5510 and two 1841s and suggested VRRP or GLBP for the LAN with the
> ASA and 1841s.  Apparantly, the customer didn't even mention that the
> two connections were to the same ISP, me.  The customer just ordered the
> equipment and said "Make it work."

Whoever sold them on that solution should be the one to make it work. ;)


> The WANs are T1 (existing) and 4Mbps ethernet delivered via a wireless
> network.
> 
> Cisco sales tech guy said:
>> What we discussed was the ASA having a default route to the virtual   
>> IP address of the routers and they would be running either VRRP or    
>> GLBP (whatever they decided they wanted to do) going out to the       
>> service provider.  Then the routers would simply have a default route 
>> going out to the service provider to hit the 'Net.                    
> 
> The network design is supposed to be something like :
> 
>     Cisco 7204VXR NPE G1 (ISP)
>        |                |
>       T1        Wireless network cloud
>        |                |
>    Cisco 1841       Cisco 1841
>        |                |
>       -+-------+--------+-
>                |
>          Cisco ASA 5510  (Customer)
> 


I dunno what Cisco would do, but I'd start with a GRE tunnel over the
wireless side. I do this from home back to the office (crypto on the
tunnel too, of course) so I can get all my office routes via OSPF and
effectively be directly connected. Make sure to put some static routes
in there so the tunnel endpoint doesn't because learned over OSPF, which
would cause the tunnel to drop.

I wouldn't bother with the load balance on drastically unequal links -
the first time they have a huge transfer and expect to see 6.5 megs, the
flow will end up over the T1 and they'll be screaming about the 1.5 meg
reality.

~Seth