[c-nsp] Load balancing on portchan (4500X->ASR1006)

[Chuck Church]

That fact that the 4500X is only doing L2 shouldn't have an effect on its ability to look at IP addresses and port numbers for load balancing.  It might help.  But tunneling things such as GRE and MPLS could certainly put all traffic on one link.  4500X is based on Sup7, depending on OS version you should have some options.  3.8 will do:
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst4500/XE3-8-0E/15-24E/configuration/guide/xe-380-configuration/channel.html#72570

Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: cisco-nsp [mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of CiscoNSP List
Sent: Sunday, June 4, 2017 4:07 AM
To: "Rolf Hanßen" <nsp at rhanssen.de>
Cc: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Load balancing on portchan (4500X->ASR1006)

Hi mate - 4500X(Primary) it is egress usage on both ports, 4500X(Secondary), it is the opposite)ingress....I only tried mac balancing for testing....lol, it seems to get the best balance.....cant use ip/port....on src/dst ip, or src/dst port.....4500X only does layer 2 (Trunking vlans up to ASR1000, which does L3 (dot1q subints on portchan).....an old legacy setup from many years ago, that is goign to be retirred adap 😊


Thanks


________________________________
From: "Rolf Hanßen" <nsp at rhanssen.de>
Sent: Sunday, 4 June 2017 12:49 AM
To: CiscoNSP List
Cc: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Load balancing on portchan (4500X->ASR1006)

Hello,

I read your mail twice and still don't know which direction is affected (4500X tp ASR or ASR to 4500X or both).
Please be aware that the balancing hash method only affects outbound traffic, so changing the method on the 4500X only affects traffic towards the ASR.
Using mac adresses for balancing is a bad idea. Years ago we had the great idea to connect several servers with dual nic to a router with a 2 port channel switching between.
MAC on the router was always the same, MACs on the servers were all even because we used the same port on all servers.
Result: no balaning at all.

Is the switch able to use IP / Port for all frames or do you have packts it maybe does not understand (like MPLS Packets)?

kind regards
Rolf

> Hi Everyone - Have a 4 port etherchan between ASR1006/4500X(In VSS) - 
> Tried virtually all the load-balancing options on the 4500X, but port "1"
> in the portchan group always gets majority of traffic share.
>
>
> Links are:
>
>
> ASR1006      4500X (2)
>
> 0/0/3            1/1/4
>
> 1/0/0            1/1/16
>
> 1/0/3            2/1/4
>
> 2/0/0            2/1/16
>
>
> src/dst ip - I get both ports on "primary" 4500X being primarily used
> (1/1/4 getting the most)
>
> src/dst mac - I get a bit of a better load spread, but 2/1/4 gets very 
> little traffic, and again 1/1/4 gets the most
>
> src/dst port - 1/1/4 gets the most, 2/1/16 gets a lot more (ingress), 
> 2/1/4, very little
>
>
> The portchan peak usage is 2 to 2.5Gb/sec, but would do more, as it is 
> being limited by the load-balancing....i.e 1/1/4 will max out at 
> 1G/sec (We have a very bursty traffic.....SP - So mix of 
> Inet/L3VPN/backup/replication etc)
>
>
> If anyone has some suggestions on how to achieve a better(more even) 
> traffic spread, it would be greatly appreciated....Migrating to 10Gb 
> is what we plan to do, but am interested in anyones comments on why 
> 1/1/4 is used so heavily regardless of the load-balancing algorithm 
> used (Assuming it is because it is the "first" port....spanning tree  
> probably preferring this port?)....the ASR1006 only has 2 
> load-balancing options flow-based or vlan-manual......lol and I dont 
> have any interest in setting up manual vlan load-balancing 😉)
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-nsp mailing list  cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net 
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
cisco-nsp Info Page - puck.nether.net<https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp>
puck.nether.net
To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the cisco-nsp Archives. Using cisco-nsp: To post a message to all the list members, send ...



> archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/


_______________________________________________
cisco-nsp mailing list  cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/