Cisco BGP 2

[Packet7]

Hello,

We own a class C and would like to use BGP between two ISP's. We contacted them and they have confirmed that they do support it. Can someone give us a high-level breakdown of what is involved? I was thinking of the following:
- Register for an AS number
- Renumber the backup ISP with an IP from our existing block
- Work with ISP's to configure BGP and test

Note: we aren't looking to load balance, just failover when our primary goes down.

Thank you!

Rgds,

John

 

[LDnetworkguy]

Is there a reason you don't want to use both connections simultaneously. Typically when there are multiple isp connections to a network each will have shorter paths to certain Internet networks, which translate to faster response times, and a better Internet experience.

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[burtsbees]

It sounds like customers need to be connected to the internet, so I would say redundancy in this case (if this is the case) would not be a bad idea.

Burt

 

[Packet7]

Hi,

The reason why we wouldn't load balance between the two is because one link is a fractional T3 @ 15 Mbps and the other is a WiFi at 5 Mbps. If anyone has anything else to add, I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Rgds,

John

 

[brianinms]

There is going to be a great deal of tuning of the metrics and using prefix lists to configure BGP to work in pure failover mode. Do you host a critical web server farm?

 

[Packet7]

No. Mostly mail and remote access.

 

[jneiberger]

Brianinms is right. It will require a lot of tuning and even then you probably will still get some incoming traffic on your backup link. If you had two links to the same ISP then this would be really easy. But when you deal with two different ISPs, you have very limited control regarding incoming traffic. There are some metrics you can tweak, but you have no control over what the other ISPs do with those metrics.

 

[Packet7]

Excellent, thanks for the info.

Rgds,

John