router interface selection

[rgnwcco]

Please can you recommend a router for use between our head office and our offshore platform? This link is considered as a very critical link for the systems offshore.

We have currently 2 x Cisco 4500 routers each on either side (total 4 routers). Each router has 4 Ethernet ports each.

The links between onshore and offshore are

1 x 100mbps Ethernet over Higher order Muxes

1 x 100mbps Ethernet over Lower order Muxes

We require full redundancy between the two locations. So far we’ve been using HSRP.

Can we just take the 2800 series router (2FE ports), create a trunk from one port to the switch on the Internal networks and then route across using the other. Or do we need to have 4 FE ports like in the legacy routers for reliability and performance?

[spremkumar]

Hi

Its not all about the availability of ports in 2800 series router but also the amount of bandwidth being used between these locations during peak hours and the capability of the router to handle the same...

Best thing to do is to observe the amont of traffic on the link which is connecting your onshore/offshore locations and then you can decide off in the router model.

You can either configure HSRP or GLBP which can offer redundancy as well load balancing with the later.

regds