Metro ethernet Load balancing - unqual speeds - Help

[Parm Singh]

Hi Guys,

Hoping someone can help

we have an satellite office connected back to us over 2 Metro Ethernet links 10Mb & 20Mb, for where we present internet transit.

I have 4 cisco 2901s on each side of the links and tried using GLBP, to fully utilise bandwidth & provide failover.

This works to a fashion, however using this method client will only use one virtual forwarder hence never achieve the full combined bandwidth of 30Mb.

is there anything i can use to actually utilise the links as one, such as port channel which obviously i cant use due to unequal speed links.  I need the full 30Mb especially for the veeam replication from site.

Thanks in advance

[Diana Karolina Rojas]

Hello,

Can you provide me the GLBP configuration? Which load-balance algorithm are you using?

Regards,

[Parm Singh]

Hi anaid_30kadi,

I'm trying weghted.

logic being 40 weight to 20 weight should give me 2to1?

config as below RO-01 both end on the 10MB, RO-02 on the 20Mb

Head Office

HQ RO-01

track 1 ip route 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255 reachability

interface Loopback0
 ip address 3.3.3.3 255.255.255.0
!
interface Embedded-Service-Engine0/0
 no ip address
 shutdown
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 description $ETH-LAN$$ETH-SW-LAUNCH$$INTF-INFO-GE 0/0$
 ip address 172.17.17.1 255.255.255.0
 glbp 1 ip 172.17.17.254
 glbp 1 priority 101
 glbp 1 preempt
 glbp 1 weighting 20 lower 10
 glbp 1 load-balancing weighted
 glbp 1 weighting track 1 decrement 10
 duplex auto
 speed auto
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
 ip address 172.16.17.2 255.255.255.252
 duplex full
 speed 100
!
ip forward-protocol nd

ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.17.17.250
ip route 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255 172.16.17.1
ip route 10.0.100.0 255.255.255.0 172.16.17.1

HQ-RO-02

track 1 ip route 4.4.4.4 255.255.255.255 reachability
!
interface Loopback0
 ip address 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.255
!
interface Embedded-Service-Engine0/0
 no ip address
 shutdown
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 description $ETH-LAN$$ETH-SW-LAUNCH$$INTF-INFO-GE 0/0$
 ip address 172.17.17.2 255.255.255.0
 glbp 1 ip 172.17.17.254
 glbp 1 preempt
 glbp 1 weighting 40 lower 20
 glbp 1 load-balancing weighted
 glbp 1 weighting track 1 decrement 20
 duplex auto
 speed auto
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
 ip address 172.16.17.6 255.255.255.252
 duplex full
 speed 100
!
ip forward-protocol nd
!
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.17.17.250
ip route 4.4.4.4 255.255.255.255 172.16.17.5
ip route 10.0.100.0 255.255.255.0 172.16.17.5

Satellite Office

SAT-RO-01

track 1 ip route 3.3.3.3 255.255.255.255 reachability
!
interface Loopback0
 ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255
!
interface Embedded-Service-Engine0/0
 no ip address
 shutdown
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 ip address 10.0.100.252 255.255.255.0
 glbp 1 ip 10.0.100.254
 glbp 1 priority 101
 glbp 1 preempt
 glbp 1 weighting 20 lower 10
 glbp 1 load-balancing weighted
 glbp 1 weighting track 1 decrement 20
 duplex auto
 speed auto
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
 ip address 172.16.17.1 255.255.255.252
 duplex auto
 speed auto
!
ip forward-protocol nd

!
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.16.17.2
ip route 3.3.3.3 255.255.255.255 172.16.17.2

SAT-RO-02

track 1 ip route 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.255 reachability
!
!
!
!
!
interface Loopback0
 ip address 4.4.4.4 255.255.255.255
!
interface Embedded-Service-Engine0/0
 no ip address
 shutdown
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 description $ETH-LAN$$ETH-SW-LAUNCH$$INTF-INFO-GE 0/0$
 ip address 10.0.100.253 255.255.255.0
 glbp 1 ip 10.0.100.254
 glbp 1 preempt
 glbp 1 weighting 40 lower 20
 glbp 1 load-balancing weighted
 glbp 1 weighting track 1 decrement 20
 duplex auto
 speed auto
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
 ip address 172.16.17.5 255.255.255.252
 duplex auto
 speed auto
!
ip forward-protocol nd

!
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.16.17.6
ip route 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.255 172.16.17.6

Thanks for your time to look into this, this is the first time i'm using GLBP :-(

sh GLBP on HQ-RO-01 head office end

GigabitEthernet0/0 - Group 1
  State is Active
    4 state changes, last state change 07:06:28
  Virtual IP address is 172.17.17.254
  Hello time 3 sec, hold time 10 sec
    Next hello sent in 1.088 secs
  Redirect time 600 sec, forwarder timeout 14400 sec
  Preemption enabled, min delay 0 sec
  Active is local
  Standby is 172.17.17.2, priority 100 (expires in 7.520 sec)
  Priority 101 (configured)
  Weighting 20 (configured 20), thresholds: lower 10, upper 20
    Track object 1 state Up decrement 10
  Load balancing: weighted
  Group members:
    00a2.eef2.daf0 (172.17.17.1) local
    00a2.eef2.dd30 (172.17.17.2)
  There are 2 forwarders (1 active)
  Forwarder 1
    State is Listen
    MAC address is 0007.b400.0101 (learnt)
    Owner ID is 00a2.eef2.dd30
    Redirection enabled, 597.536 sec remaining (maximum 600 sec)
    Time to live: 14397.536 sec (maximum 14400 sec)
    Preemption enabled, min delay 30 sec
    Active is 172.17.17.2 (primary), weighting 40 (expires in 9.440 sec)
    Client selection count: 297
  Forwarder 2
    State is Active
      3 state changes, last state change 07:06:06
    MAC address is 0007.b400.0102 (default)
    Owner ID is 00a2.eef2.daf0
    Redirection enabled
    Preemption enabled, min delay 30 sec
    Active is local, weighting 20
    Client selection count: 275

sh GLBP on SAT0-RO-01 Satellite office end

GigabitEthernet0/0 - Group 1
  State is Active
    1 state change, last state change 07:19:29
  Virtual IP address is 10.0.100.254
  Hello time 3 sec, hold time 10 sec
    Next hello sent in 1.440 secs
  Redirect time 600 sec, forwarder timeout 14400 sec
  Preemption enabled, min delay 0 sec
  Active is local
  Standby is 10.0.100.253, priority 100 (expires in 9.856 sec)
  Priority 101 (configured)
  Weighting 20 (configured 20), thresholds: lower 10, upper 20
    Track object 1 state Up decrement 20
  Load balancing: weighted
  Group members:
    00a2.eef2.e318 (10.0.100.253)
    00eb.d565.f5ee (10.0.100.252) local
  There are 2 forwarders (1 active)
  Forwarder 1
    State is Listen
      6 state changes, last state change 03:36:57
    MAC address is 0007.b400.0101 (learnt)
    Owner ID is 00a2.eef2.e318
    Redirection enabled, 599.872 sec remaining (maximum 600 sec)
    Time to live: 14399.872 sec (maximum 14400 sec)
    Preemption enabled, min delay 30 sec
    Active is 10.0.100.253 (primary), weighting 40 (expires in 11.424 sec)
    Client selection count: 16055
  Forwarder 2
    State is Active
      3 state changes, last state change 00:18:46
    MAC address is 0007.b400.0102 (default)
    Owner ID is 00eb.d565.f5ee
    Redirection enabled
    Preemption enabled, min delay 30 sec
    Active is local, weighting 20
    Client selection count: 3249

Thanks again any guidance is greatly appreciated.

[Masoud Pourshabanian]

Hello,

It should work if you have a good traffic distribution. Make sure GLBP members see each other through layer 2. GLBP would cause asymmetrical routing. Consider this if you have a security device in the network.

Masous

[Joseph W. Doherty · Accepted solution]

The only thing that comes to my mind, to effectively use both links unequal bandwidths as one logical aggregate, would be some kind of hardware mux at both ends.  (Don't know if any such thing even exists.)

If you don't need any individual flow to use all 30 Mbps, your next best option would be something like PfR that can dynamically load balance multiple flows across both links.

[Parm Singh]

Thanks Joseph,

GLBP wont do what i need, learned the hard way :-(

Now im thinking  to just to use 2 HSRP groups each end (For failover) then use PBR to route traffic by class / port.

I'm thinking PBR on RO-01 with tracking each end,

If the 20MB link fails (RO-02 either end) tracking on RO-01 should take care of it

If the 10Mb link drops again the PBR tracking should accommodate

if either end RO-01 fails HSRP wil jump to RO-02 which has no  PBR.

Lets see :-)

thanks for your advice, if you see anything wrong in my logic above let me know

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Yea, you could use PBR, but it's a pain to manage.  Link fail-over can be a bit tricky with it too.

Perhaps a better way for "static" load balancing, over GLBP, would be to use routing load balancing.  You might use a routing protocol that supports ECMP (just "lie" to the routing protocol), or if using EIGRP, use its support for unECMP.