MultiLink PPP / load balance

[jdl508]

I have a question regarding multilink PPP or some type of load balancing. My current environment is as follows.
Corp site has a 2621xm with 2 remote sites connected to it
1. T1 to site_a
2. T1 to site_b
3. it is also connected to a PIX FW which makes it’s way to the internet
I want to create additional bandwidth to site_a by purchasing another T1. My questions are as follows.
Idea 1. I am thinking of going with a 3660 for the corp router to allow for future growth and more processing power (I have another site coming up in the mid summer)
this gives me the 3 mb pipe to site_a (with multilink ppp) but I still have a single failure point.
Idea 2. get another 2621 and have part of the users at corp use it as there default gateway, this is an administrative nightmare because I would need multiple dhcp scopes and would need to setup routing to a pix firewall (from both routers, not sure I can do this) that leads to the internet. In essence I would have a LAN with 2 gateways
Idea 3. setup HSRP but I think that this would just be good for redundancy not extra bandwidth (load balancing).

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated as I need to come up with a solution shortly.
Thanks

 

[ewiley]

The 3660 has hot-swap capability of like-to-like cards and network modules, as well as hot-swap redundant powersupplies. I'd say that this makes it a little better than a single point of failure (unless the backplane dies, but I've never had that happen--maybe keep your current 2621 on-hand as a cold or warm backup in case of this failing). This is also the easiest setup I can think of, which will help to prevent configuration errors and speed up troubleshooting.

As far as load balancing, I think MP is a little faster than load-balancing over a routing protocol, since it can reduce latency a little bit (YMMV).