Sending specific traffic via an alternative route

[mspeller]

Hi,

We have an 837 router at a branch office which connects to our 2600 head office router over an MPLS. The branch users are all running Citrix and the server is based at head office. The users are doing a lot of printing which seems to cause excessive latency in the link resulting in dropped outbound queues on the 837 router. We also have another router at the branch which handles internet traffic for PC users. We have created a VPN on this router to our head office. What we would like to do is route all printing traffic via this VPN in order to reduce the load on the MPLS circuit.

I'm not sure where to start in solving this problem, can anyone help?

Many thanks

Martin

[st_kannan · Accepted solution]

In the client side router put more specific route for that print server pointing towards VPN tunnel interface. For return traffic also you need to put route in the internet router pointing towards tunnel interface.

[mspeller]

Thanks for the quick response! I think from what you're saying that I need to implement policy-based routing to override the routers routing table - which would make sense.

My plan is to do the following:

Since any print requests are encapsulated within the Citrix traffic, I can leave that part of it alone. On the head office router I need to set up some policy based routing to re-route print information coming from the server to my internet firewall and out over the VPN. If I remember correctly, printing uses TCP port 9100, so I would need a return route on my internet router and my 837 since that is the default gateway for all printers (unless I change their default gateways!).

Does this seem like the right way to approach the problem?

TIA

Martin.

[st_kannan]

Sorry in my previous post i mentioned return traffic. I think for print server no need for return traffic.