How do I setup load balancing on a 7206 router?

[glennwilson]

We have a 7206 router at each tower location, we have 2 different radio links and we need to load balance the traffic between both radio links.  Each radio is plugged into a 100mb port in the routers.

How do we load balancing the traffic?  We are looking double our network link speed and if one radio link goes down, there will still be traffic across the network between the towers.

Thank you for any help in configuring this.  We are using IOS verison: 12.4

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

Are the bandwidths the same?

If so, most IGPs support ECMP routing.  So, often the common solution is to run a dynamic routing protocol between the routers on both sides of the links and let the routing protocol use both.  It will also detect a link loss or link recovery and reroute as needed.

Static routing can be used too, but if loss of a radio link doesn't take down the router's physical interface, you need to implement something like SLA tracking to detect the outage.

If you have the right feature set, you can also use OER with 12.4.  It does dynamic load balancing.  It can also detect "quality" issues and route around them too.

[glennwilson]

One of the hops is the exact same size / speed... exact same..  other hops are not the same speed.

Can you post a couple of examples please?

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Disclaimer

The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

Since both paths only provide a maximum of 45 Mbps, all you need to do is insure any routing protocol sees them as equal, which your routers might not by default.

[glennwilson]

Hop 1:  There is 2 radio links that are 45mbps/full duplex.  These links are exactly the same radios running on the same dish, dual-pol, so they should be the exact same bandwidth.  These radio links are either up or down, they do not transmit slower or faster, flat 45mbps or nothing.

Hop 2:  This link has 1 of the 45mpbs radio links as described above.  The other link is up to 400mbps, however it will transmit at lower data rates if at all possible before the link goes down.

Hop 3: We have a 1 gig Ethernet and a 100mbps, both are full duplex on each end of the path. Both of these run across point-to-point fiber.  The 1Gig link is a bridge link, the 100Mbps link is the backup off the ONS system.

Those are the 3 main hop configurations.