Question about Router Capacity and BGP

[spearehad]

Hi,

First, I am a novie, I know very little about networks and switches (programmer at heart). I do own a webhosting company that is expanding and my network engineer takes forever and a day to tell me a damn thing about what I need to do. And when he does speaks , he sounds chinese to me. Can't answer a simple question to save his life.

I just have a few questions.. nothing very technical just need to get a grip on what steps are neede to accomplish my goals.

Can someone tell me how mnay set of IPs I can bind to a Ciscos 2611 and 2610. I currently have two Class C's bound to the 2610 and and 7 to the 2611. I am going to to add about 50 between the two of them. Non-contiguous sets at various times.
Can these two routers handle this?

Second question:
The 2610 has a 10 meg line coming and the 2611 has a 6 meg line coming into it.

I want to combine these lines into one switch so all servers can share the bandwith from both providers and use all the ips. Also, for failover and traffic will take the path of least resistance. (BGP?)

What type of hardware would be needed to accomplish and the least expensive?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Spearhead

 

[KiscoKid]

By sets, I presume you mean subnet classes, i.e. Class C. Therefore do you mean you want the routers to be handling routing for approximately 60 subnets?

If so, I would recommend you configure trunking between your routers and its local switch and create sub-interfaces on each router. You can bundle each set/subnet into a VLAN for logical segmentation. This will keep broadcasts down and manageable.

The router will be able to handle routing for 60 different subnets however the key question is just how heavily utilised will each subnet be. If heaviliy utilised, it could cause problems. It's probably best to give it a go and monitor router utilisation.

For the load-balancing aspect of your question, you can achieve outbound load-balancing by either using a routing protocol between your routes and the switch (you would need a layer 3 switch) OR you can employ a protocol called GLBP which achieves the same thing for LAN static routing environments.

For inbound load-balancing, this will depend what the ISP can offer in terms of a routing protocol. My preference would be to use BGP as this scales nicely across multiple routers and even different ISPs. With BGP you have tight control of which router you prefer for each of your subnets.

Hope this helps.

 

[spearehad]

Hey KiscoKid,

Do you live anywhere in Texas? I could use a good KiscoKid.

One more question, what are the differences in Layer 3 switches? I know i need to get one and I see some ebay for around $500 called 48 port Extreme (I think). Do you think this would do the job or do i have to spend big bucks on a layer 3 switch.

I plan on geting BGP working via Arin, after both networks are working for all my servers.

Trunking vlans and etc I am not familiar with.

Thanks for the informtaion,

Spearhead

 

[KiscoKid]

I'm not sure about the capabilities of the switch you've mentioned. SO long as it supports a decent routing protocol like OSPF you should be in business. If you can get hold of the switch literature, take a look for any references for support for OSPF (or RFC 2178 - which is the same thing).

If you prefer the more expensive Cisco approach, I'd probably recommend a 3550 with EMI IOS (EMI comes with OSPF). The default software is SMI which doesn't come with OSPF.

If you go ahead and buy a layer 3 switch, you don't really need to setup the trunking and intervlan routing on your routers, i.e. the layer 3 switch does this for you.

Hope this helps

 

[spearehad]

Hello KiscoKid again,

I just got back in town and read your message thanks alot for the advice.

I am narrowing down my choces and I saw this item for sale on ebay and was wodnering if it would do the trick.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Extreme-Summit-...ryZ71521QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I just want to be able to plug two (or 3 or 4) RJ-45s from routers with hot bandwith from multiple provders into one switch and all servers that are plugged in to the switch can use ALL IPS and bandwith.

Thanks for the tipsa agin,

-spearhead

 

[KiscoKid]

Albeit the Ebay desc doesn't specifically say it is supported, I have seen a couple of other guys advertising this exact same switch and they're claiming it does support OSPF - so you should be in business.

 

[spearehad]

Well that switch only has a basic liscence. It needs an upgrade direct from extreme networks.

I have placed a call to them. It seems a liscense is going to require annual membership.

Is this the case with all switches that need to do this?

What kind of switch out there is already configured this and needs nothing else to do it?

What about cisco? I'm not into their high prices but i really dont like annual fees.

Please let me know,

Thanks again,
spearhead

 

[KiscoKid]

I believe one of Cisco's cheaper switches which supports OSPF is the one I suggested in an earlier post: The Catalyst 3550 (with EMI software image). I reckon you can probably get one of these for around 2k on Ebay. If you go this path, make doubly sure it supports EMI aka Enhanced Image.

The standard image (SMI) does not support OSPF.

 

[spearehad]

I saw this one but the guy says no password.. is it necessary?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Cisco-3550-Cata...ryZ28040QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You are bidding for ONE WS-C3550-24-EMI. I got 2 of this for a customer but they never put in. Someone helped me configure it but I don't have the knowledge or password. No box or manual or cable.



Base ethernet MAC Address: 00:08:e3:fd:64:80

Xmodem file system is available.

The password-recovery mechanism is enabled.

Initializing Flash...

flashfs[0]: 16 files, 3 directories

flashfs[0]: 0 orphaned files, 0 orphaned directories

flashfs[0]: Total bytes: 15998976

flashfs[0]: Bytes used: 5111808

flashfs[0]: Bytes available: 10887168

flashfs[0]: flashfs fsck took 15 seconds.

...done Initializing Flash.

Boot Sector Filesystem (bs installed, fsid: 3

Loading "flash:c3550-i5q3l2-mz.121-8.EA1b/c3550-i5q3l2-mz.121-8

################################################################################

################################################################################

################################################################################

################################################################################

##################################################################



File "flash:c3550-i5q3l2-mz.121-8.EA1b/c3550-i5q3l2-mz.121-8.EA1b.bin" uncompres

sed and installed, entry point: 0x3000

executing

 

[spearehad]

Or here is alist of all of them.

http://search.ebay.com/cisco-3550-e...vZ1QQsacatZQ2d1QQsaprchiZQQsaprcloZQQsbrsrtZl

I see one for $1599 that is EMI capable, is that somethign you could help me with or shoudl i go for the the ones that is NEW and $2099 ?

Thanks again.

Todd

 

[KiscoKid]

hi

The password isn't necessary - it is relatively easy to break it. Your resident networking guy should know how to do this (either that or access cisco.com and search for '3550 password recovery' - it's bound to be there.)


I have no issue at all going for a 2nd hand one. They're pretty reliable in my opinion. It helps they're rarely rebooted and they just run and run. Thie does help extend the life of the device.

Hope this helps

 

[spearehad]

Would this router support BGP because that is that next, once I get all servers using both networks and using both sets of ips from both bandwith providers.

I need to get this goign ASAP, i just fired my network guy so il be taking applications...

Any advice?

Thanks,
Todd

 

[KiscoKid]

It does support BGP albeit I thought you may continue to use your 2600's as they give you improved resilience (i.e. 2 routers are better than 1)

 

[drae73]

I have followed your conversations and Kisco Kid is on top of things, great job guys. Just some insight on the Extreme. I love Cisco myself but I do work with Extreme and in fact own one for testing. The licensing isn't important so long as you have an accurate software code on your device. Just an fyi for you guys, the Extreme networks devices on the lower end are the Summit 200-24 and 200-48 both of which support layer 3 capabilities with industry standard protocols OSPF, RIP, and BGP. I too recommend the cisco route for proven success and reliability. Just wanted to provide some insight.

Thanks,

 

[spearehad]

Drae or Kisco,

Thanks for all the info. I talked to extreme and the switch is end of life after decmeber so I decided against it.
I found a cisco 3550 with EMI for a decent price sub -$1500.

My question is this : If the 3550 already has EMI, can I simply plug both routers into this swtich and then plug my servers into this switch and all servers will be able to see both routers and thier IPS via eth0 on the servers, and all ips from both routers can be used on the servers with BGP and bonding or whatever it takes for them to back each other up and pass traffic through the best route if one is clogged with traffic.

This is not some complicated network and not for office use or anything else. Just a rack with 20 servers in it conencted to the net via one swtich and one router.

I hope this all i need to do.

Thanks for your advice.

Todd

 

[jneiberger]

If you want my honest opinion, you really need to get someone who understands BGP to handle the configuration. It's not that complicated but you do need to really understand what you're doing or it's easy to make a bad mistake. If you don't know what you're doing, you could easily start advertising addresses from one provider to the other, which might make Provider #1 think that the easiest way to get to Provider #2 is through your routers. That would be bad.

I'm not trying to be hard on you, but you really don't seem to have the expertise necessary to get this running correctly. I really think it would be wise to call in a consultant with experience in BGP and ISP connectivity to get this working.

Sure, it might cost you a few bucks but it will pay off in the long (and short) run.

John

 

[spearehad]

Ths is true and I plan on doing that when I get to the BGP point.

Right now I just want all the server to see both routers and be able to use thier IPS.

Some domains and cpanels will use one router and some will use the other router and its IP. Im nto trying to be BGP right now, just allow my servers to see all the ips from both networks and use the respective gateway, for now..

This will buy me time and get more customers so I can hire more and build a better network.

Does that sound doable, with the cisco 3550?

-Todd

 

[spearehad]

Fellas,
Sorry to bother once agin , but themost importnat question is this.

My question is this : If the 3550 already has EMI, can I simply plug both routers into this swtich and then plug my servers into this switch and all servers will be able to see both routers and thier IPS via eth0 on the servers, and all ips from both routers can be used on the servers with BGP and bonding or whatever it takes for them to back each other up and pass traffic through the best route if one is clogged with traffic.

I will hire someone like you to do BGP but right now I just need the switch to see both the servers and routers and be abel to route traffic to each one.

Thanks for your help,

Todd

 

[KiscoKid]

Todd

Don't worry the 3550 can do everything you've just described. I won't go into details of how you do that because the consultant you're hiring should be able to make it work.

Your requirements are not too complicated and any engineer worth their salt should be able to deliver what you want.

 

[spearehad]

I want to hire you , how is it?