Cisco RV016 and Switches?

[NickMay89]

Would one of the 'Cisco RV016' work with a switch? I'm planning on running our work network using this device to help load balance between 3 WAN connections and would like to keep the upstairs and downstairs computer users separated via a switch.

Will the switch affect the load balancing or will the router still be able to detect each individual user and balance the load as seen necessary?

Thanks

[lifennel]

Hello Nick,

The load balancing feature takes place in the hardware of the RV016 using one of two load balancing modes: IP group and Intelligent Balancer (however, if you are utilizing WAN1 port, the WAN 1 port will automatically use Intelligent Balancer). The method for carrying out the load balancing with Intelligent Balancer between the multple WANs is with WRR (weighted round robin), and all of these computations take place on the RV016. Your switch will not affect those computations or the speed of the data travelling on your network from the RV016. If you plan on using a managed switch, however, additional configurations may need to be made depending on how you implement your network's topology and addressing scheme.

I hope I was able to answer your question with the information you provided us.

Thanks,

-Lindsey

[NickMay89]

So am I correct in saying that with a switch handling all the computer connections and then the switch plugging into the router will allow each individual computer to be load balanced individually?

[lifennel]

Nick,

The switch will not be involved in the bandwidth management aspect. And the RV016's Intelligent Balancer only uses weighted round robin on the WAN ports, using TCP sessions to computate the outgoing traffic. The Intelligent Balancer does not "load balance" traffic travelling between the LAN ports, meaning each computer will not be "load balanced" individually. It only works for the internet connections.

Hope this helps!

-Lindsey

[NickMay89]

So regardless of the switch, regardless of the computer, when the router receives an internet request it will do it's thing and load balance correct?

Also does it monitor the internet connections, for example if one line lost connectivity would it know to skip that connection until it is active again?

Thanks

[lifennel]

Nick,

You are correct, all computations take place on the router when it comes to the load balancing.

For the second, the RV016 does provide failover functionality. If one link is detected as "down", all existing connections will move to an active WAN link.

Thanks,

-Lindsey

[sabina_1989]

Lindsey,

Can you just tell me which weight or preference is used for Weighted Round Robin algorithm in RV016 router?

Thanks,

Sabina

[Tom Watts]

Sabina, WRR assigns a value (weight) to each queue then dispatches the packets from the queues in a proportionate manner from each queue to the assigned weight.

An example of WRR would be-

Queue 1 = Weight 3

Queue 2 = Weight 2

Queue 3 = Weight 1

Lets say queue 1 sends 3 packet, while queue 2 sends 2 packets and queue 3 sends 1 packet. This process will behave in a round robin manner in the sense that each packet will be released from each queue equally, queue 1 then queue 2, then queue 3 and repeat the process. In this examples, the queue 1 sends 3 packets, queue 2 sending 2 packet, queue 3 sending 1 packet and the entire process repeats.

Also keep in mind, the load balance is EGRESS traffic only.

-Tom
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