How to bundling multiple ethernet 100mb links into a larger pipe for wan connection

[sam saeed]

I have a customer that sets up there WAN links using 4x ethernet 100mb links and bundle then for larger throughput. For all of there deployment they use some 3rd party router that works for them. They ran into a customer that wants it be a cisco deployment. I wasn't even aware that multiple wan links from the same provider can be bundled to make a larger link.Only on a lan segment via etherchannel.

What cisco option device wise can it be done with or what kind of configuration? They want a couple of ASR1002's but need to make sure that they can there wan links properly set up. Everyone is under the impression that the ACE 4700 can do it but I was under the impression that its application load balancing so that wouldn't work.

[Giuseppe Larosa]

Hello David,

you need to clarify with your customer what they exactly mean with WAN bundling.

Having 4 FE hand offs to the same provider can open the possibility to use really LAN based bundling solutions like LACP 802.13ad.actually an etherchannel.

Another option is Equal cost Multi Path ECMP, having 4 default routes one for each link can produce some load balancing using CEF hash algorithms with results that can be compared to that of an etherchannel.

You have spoken of two ASR1002, so we can imagine a solution with 2 WAN links over ASR1002-1 and two WAN links over ASR1002-2 this would create some more difficulties in achieving load balancing among the four links. You should investigate more.

I would say that using an ACE 4700 for this is a waste of resources as the appliance is a load balancer, standard routers should be enough.

Hope to help

Giuseppe

[sam saeed]

Thank you! I will investigate this further.