aggregation vs. failover

[Kevin Melton]

I have a customer who has 3 connections to the Internet. One is a T1 which has a firewall behind the edge router. The 2nd is a 3mg DSL circuit that also has a firewall behind it. The 3rd is a 1.5mg DSL circuit with a simple router only protecting the inside network.

I want to bring both of the DSL lines into a single router and either 1) Aggregate the 3 mg and the 1.5 mg to make 4.5 mg bandwidth to the Internet, and 2)Load balance across the 2 links...

I have the option of using either a 1721 or a 2611 XM box.

What are my options?

Thanks in advance

Kevin Melton

Project Manager

KMNR Network Resources

[thomas.chen]

I would suggest you your second option.Because,aggregation is effective and fine.This provides as you said an increased bandwidth.But it may decrease the availabilty factor.If this link is down,then entire link will be down.But if you are load balancing,even though one link fails,the other will bear the complete load atleast till the failed link comes back up.