Per Packet VPN Load Balancing

[derSchweiz]

I have 2 internet connections at 2 sites and I want to combine these 2
connections to get greater bandwidth. Can any one tell me if my idea would
work?

Map:
[LAN]-----<Cisco Router>----------[RRAS Server
1]----------------------<Internet Connection 1>-----------[RRAS Server
3]------<Cisco Router>--------[LAN]
|_ [RRAS Server
2]--------------------- <Internet Connection 2>-----------[RRAS Server
4]---|

Basically use a load-balacing protocol on the Cisco router like RIP, and
have equal cost routes an make it round-robin packets to either of the RRAS
servers and have the packets arrive at the other end and get reassembled by
the other Cisco router.

In theory this should work, but I have not tested it yet.

Thanks for any input...

 

[derSchweiz]

Just tried it and it DOES work

The only problem is that the two internet connection speeds MUST BE
identical for the load balance to work between a Windows Server 2003 box and
a Cisco Router since server 2003 doesn't support EIGRP/IGRP Unequal-Cost
load balancing.

If the links are different speeds, and you load balance anyways... you will
end up with a slower link
e.g. 64kbps and 1024kbps (2 connections)

You will get 2x the slowest ==>> 128kbps.

I used OSPF in this setup and used the "no ip route-cache" on the Cisco
Router.under each interface that has the next hop to the RRAS servers.