Internet Load Balancing

[Terence Lockette]

Hello,

I want to load balance my Internet traffic between two ASR 1001 routers that are connected to our core switches.  Both routers are connected to the same ISP (Comcast) going to the same BGP AS on different /30 subnets.  Is there a way for me to load balance my Internet traffic using both connections with BGP rather than having one of these connections sitting idle?  If not, the only solution I see is to configure my layer 3 devices to split internet traffic between both routers (i.e. default routes with same AD).

[blau grana]

Hi

Do you receive same prefixes on both links?

If yes, you can try to configure multipath for BGP to load balance.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_2t/12_2t11/feature/guide/ft11bmpl.html

[Terence Lockette]

Yes, both prefixes are /30.  We have a /24 for our public address space in which a range of it is used for dynamic NAT to get users out to the Internet.  So what you're saying is that I should be able to configure multipath BGP for my given situation?

[blau grana]

Do you receive from ISP only default route, partial BGP table or full? Do you receive same prefixes on both links?

It would be helpful to post topology to have better idea about your scenario.

[Terence Lockette]

Sorry for a late response, my priority shifted to our wireless project.  At this time, I'm going to put this topic on the back burner.  But to answer your question, we're only receiving partial updates from the ISP.  The direction I may go is to have the ISP send us the default route only and continue to keep the 2nd connection as a back up since we have 2 ASAs in Active/Standy where one ASA is connected to the primary Internet connection and the 2nd ASA is connected to the backup Internet connection.

The other thing I may do is determine if there are specific outside vendors/partners that access our Internet presence Web systems and perhaps have the ISP send partial routes based on those networks.  But I'll figure that out at a later time.  Thanks!

[blau grana]

you are welcome and good luck with your projects.

Best Regards

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[Joseph W. Doherty]

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If the ASRs support PfR, that might be the best method for outbound load balancing.  Inbound load balancing would depend much on the cooperation of your ISP.