Load Balancing

[robrichardson]

Hi There

Never really had a go at load balancing so excuse me if I sound like I haven't got a clue!

I've a remote site which is joined to the head office via a 64k leased line. this workes fine although it seems sluggish, we have a ADSL connection installed at the remote office which eventually will be connected to a PIX 506. What I would like to do is create a VPN connection to the head office using the ADSL line (this I have no problems doing), then I would like to load balance traffic between the two sites using both of the connections. At the moment all I have is two gateway addresses to the head office. Do I need to install a router?

Please help.

Thanks

 

[bell1996]

You'll need to install a router in front of the PIX, to accept the ADSL circuit. This router should also be able to handle the 64k circuit. At this point you'll have a router with 2 "WAN" links: 1 ADSL and 1 64k. Depending on the router (I know Cisco very well), you can configure it to load share traffic across both circuits. Your existing router with the 64k circuit may be able to handle the ADSL circuit also(just guessing).

 

[robrichardson]

Thanks for the reply.

I have a 2600 cisco router if that would work. Am I correct in saying that both connections would terminate at the router and then the router would be subsequently configured for the load balancing?

If Im correct any ideas how I would configure the router?

 

[bell1996]

A 2600 with a serial wic card and a ADSL wic card would work just fine. The router would then be configured for load sharing. Now the trick is, how to load share. The 64k is a point to point circuit, and one hop away from a routing stand point. How can we make the ADSL circuit appear as a point to point circuit? Now I'm making the assumption that you have a Cisco 2600 on the other end.

64K and ADSL
LAN---Cisco 2600===============Cisco 2600---LAN

(the adsl actually goes to an ISP not a direct P2P)

To simulate a P2P you can create a GRE tunnel between the 2 sites across the ADSL circuit. This would give the router the appeareance of have a P2P, and you can set the bandwidth of the GRE tunnel also (in this case 64k).

 

[robrichardson]

Thanks bell1996, most of that makes sense.

There is no problem with placing the 2600 infront of the remote LAN interfacing the remote 506 VPN connection and the 64k circuit however I dont have a 2600 at the head office, the VPN comes through the outside interface of a PIX 515 (at head office connected to a standard BT ADSL router) the 64k circuit travels through a 3rd party firewall which has a route through to a subsequent interface on the 515 (e2), would this affect what Im trying to achieve?

The 3rd party firewall is configured to allow all traffic through, maybe I was incorrect in stating that the 64k circuit was P2P?