Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 21:45:11 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Wai Chan" <waichan@hpu.edu> Cc: <freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: outgoing traffic load balancing with multiple ISP Message-ID: <000001c0d455$00a50fa0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <LNEJKGADPHKMLOFLNLFLCEENFAAA.waichan@hpu.edu>
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Your in a bad spot there, because even if you stuff the pipe to ISP#1, then how much additional bandwidth you get out of them is entirely dependent on how stuffed THEIR pipe is to ISP#2. Also, unless ISP#2 has a bigger feed to the core than you have to them, you won't gain anything. But, I have an idea that I'll suggest that might possibly make some sense here. What you go do is you set yourself up as a _transit_ AS. Then you go to ISP#1 and offer to route THEIR traffic through you as an alternate route to ISP#2. This gains ISP#1 multiple paths to ISP#2 - ie: More Bandwidth. Plus, it gives them a redundant backup in case their direct link to ISP#2 goes down. In exchange for this ISP#1 agrees to credit your bill to zero - in effect, you are now serving as a feed to them that costs them nothing. ISP#1 then pre-pends it's BGP advertisement towards ISP#2 an extra hop, and thus now you have a situation where traffic to ISP#1 is load-balanced, thus it's like they get double the bandwidth to their feed, and you of course get your bill reduced to just the circuit costs of maintaining the link. Naturally of course your feeds both are going to become very busy carrying all the extra traffic of ISP#1's, but in the situation you just described, your going to end up getting just as much bandwidth access to the Internet core as you would if you were able to load-balance between both ISP's. Later on, of course, once your contract to ISP#2 expires, you can simply get a feed to, say, ISP#3 and provide an even better service to ISP#1, as well as to yourself. Now, understandably ISP#1 may be reluctant to get involved in something like this. But, your giving them something that they need, and furthermore your kind of cementing your relationship to them. If they ultimately balk, then they end up with a pissed-off customer who will be telling everyone around town how terrible they are, (and losing the revenue, because you might just decide to stop paying them and then they have no choice but to sell it to collections for 10 cents on the dollar, or hire a lawyer and burn up all the money they would make off of you in legal fees) Ultimately in this situation if you both cooperate then all of you will be better off. About the only other thing that you might be able to do, assuming that you have your original contracts, is to see if there's a loophole which would allow you out of the contract for ISP#1. For example if there's a Service Level Agreement. But in my experience if you try this your going to destroy any chance of a future win-win relationship with ISP#1. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Wai Chan >Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 6:26 PM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG; freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: outgoing traffic load balancing with multiple ISP > > >Our old network admin signed a stupid 5 years contract with ISP 1 >(the ISP 1 >uses ISP 2 for next hop), and we added ISP 2 when the new network admin >arrived (this network admin is smarter becuase he only signed 1 year >contract with ISP 2). We cannot get rid of ISP 1 because of the stupid >contract. Anyway, stand BGP/route load balancing doesn't work >very well for >us because all the traffic goes out and in through ISP 2. > >We don't want to leave ISP 1's pipe empty. If the outgoing >traffic is using >the IP provided by ISP 1, then the returned traffic will be using ISP 1 >provided pipe. It applies to ISP 2 also. That's why I am trying to force >half of the traffic (http) use ISP 1 provided IP, and the other >half use ISP >2 provided IP. > >Thanks! > >best wishes, >Wai Chan > >-----Original Message----- >From: Ted Mittelstaedt [mailto:tedm@toybox.placo.com] >Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 02:36 PM >To: Wai Chan >Cc: freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG; freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: outgoing traffic load balancing with multiple ISP > > >Quoting Wai Chan <waichan@hpu.edu>: > >> I have two ISPs (two different serial links to my router). I want 50% >> of >> all outgoing traffic go through ISP 1 with ISP 1 provided IP address as >> source address, and the other 50% of all outgoing traffic go through ISP >> 2 >> with ISP 2 provided IP address as source address. >> > >Is there any reason you can't just build a second router and plug >the serial link from the second ISP into it, then take the inside >interfaces of both routers and plug them into the same hub, and >run multiple >address ranges on the hub? Then put half of your systems on one IP range >and half of them on the other. > >I realize that your not going to divide the traffic up 50% this way but >the problem is (and was just thashed over in this list less than a week >ago) that ISP #1 cannot route IP numbers supplied by ISP #2, and ISP #2 >cannot route IP numbers supplied by ISP #1, unless you have been given >entire netblocks by both ISP's and are running BGP with both and are >advertising those netblocks. Even then, load balancing is a tricky problem >because it's almost entirely dependent on the destination IP numbers that >traffic from your servers is going to. If you were multihomed >with your own >AS >in the manner you would find that in most cases, traffic is going to favor >one >interface over the other. Generally, if your careful in picking your feeds >it's not going to be worse than 60/40 one way or the other, but if you do >something like using a very well connected network for one link >and a poorly >connected network for the other, it can be as bad as 90/10. > >Have you investigated bonding or multilink with one of your ISP's? There's >also a way to multiplex T1's together that some ISP's support. > >Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com >Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide >Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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