Load Balancing between 2 Data Centers

[nareshancha]

Hi,

I am working on designing data center with a Primary and DR site.my question is how do I do load balancing between the 2 data centers which are 500 miles away from each other.I was reading about GSS , can someone help me out how do I can utilize it for my case.

Thanking in advance

Naresh

[Craig Norborg]

What are you trying to load balance? Usually a DR site is only active for whatever traffic is necessary for "mirroring" the data between sites, or when it is active, I would think all of your data would go to your primary site from the remotes...

We'd need alot more info on exactly what you're trying to accomplish to really understand what you're trying to do.

Are you trying to get remote sites to spread their data across the data centers? As I said above that doesn't make alot of sense.

Do you have portal servers at each site and want the remote sites to use whatever site is closest? That could be handled by a "DNS load balancer". I think F5 makes one, maybe Cisco. You'd want one that hands out DNS entries by what subnet (ie: geographic location) their coming in from.

If not that, if you just want to "spread the load", a round-robin DNS might help with that...

[mohamed-khadr]

Are you trying to LB using frame or T1s?

Take a look @ F 5 big IP load bal. or 3DNS.

[csoans]

Naresh,

If you have a link between the 2 sites (which you should probably already have) you could use GLBP it is similar to HSRP but with the option of loadbalancing accross 2 wan links.

please look at the follwoing Cisco article for further details

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/122newft/122t/122t15/ft_glbp.htm

Regards

Chris

[nayyarhak]

You could also have a look at RHI- Route health Injector. More to do with adv. ure services into the core, making it possible for remote sites connect to the available DC.

[bdodd]

If you are trying to use the GSS to load balance across the internet RHI will not work. Typically RHI will inject /32's into your network and ISP's wont take a network that small. Also you would not want to use DNS round robin because it does not validate the reachability of a VIP or webserver before handing out the IP to user. The GSS will provide what you are looking to do whether it is active/active or active passive.