W2K as Gateway/Router for Mutiple T1 feeds?

[fgaston]

I have feeds from 2 routers (2 different ISP's in building) and rather than buying a another router to combine, I want to use a W2K server with 3 NIC's: 2 WAN's & 1 LAN feeding to my firewall.

1. Is this doable?
2. How would the 3rd NIC (LAN) be setup? With free external IP address from one of the ISP's or with an internal address?
3. Would I be breaking all the rules to install my gateway software (Norton Web Security 2.0) on this same box so it is outside the firewall?
4. I read in another post about using NAT on in W2K. Would this be applicable here?
Thanks, Fred

 

[StarTAC]

i would reckon it's possible.. have a look at the Windows 2000 Server tool, Remote Accessing and Routing... i have used it before, but on 2 cards... it converts your Windows 2000 Server into a router...

good luck..

 

[jjgraf]

It's doable but question do you want to configure it so it's load balanced out over the 2 T1s.

I'm 90% sure that W2K does not load balance stuff with RAS.

YOu may need to look into buying another Router if you want to load balance the T1s.

 

[fgaston]

Thanks for response. Don't need to load balance, I don't think. One is full pipe & other is 64K fract. Is RAS the right method? Any idea how I would configure the internal card which goes to firewall? Would I pick up external IP or setup internal subnet? Thanks, Fred

 

[WiredToad]

I can tell you, you may not get the performance you are looking for out of the W2k server. It is totally possible to do. You will need to install RRAS (routing and remote access server). and configure your nic's to what your two ISP's require. If need be, RRAS will support RIP or OSPF if you need a routing protocol. With What you have it looks like you could get away with a couple of static routes. you should be able to install that software with no probs. GO FOR IT! ! ! !. I hope you get the performance you need from it. 2K doesn't make the best router... but thats my opinion....