[j-nsp] Anycast

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 18:45, Johan Borch <johan.borch at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is not a specific Juniper question, but there seems to be a lot for
> knowledge on this list so I will give it a shoot :)
>
> Would web traffic be suitable to use with anycasting?

The general answer is no, but in specific cases, it might be a
(very) qualified sometimes.

It would certainly not be a commonly recommended solution.

With anycast (and a stable routing table) one is likely to
have the same packets go to the same same server(s)
again and again at least over the shorter time periods.
However, web traffic these days often involves long term
connections, and often session state, which requires
packets to *always* communicate to the same server.
Anycast just can not be assured to provide that sort of
long term routing.

There are, of course, counter edge-case examples.

Gary