Cisco 2611 and BGP

Yes, yes, and yes.

Now for the challenges:

• Load balancing is not automatic between the two DLCI's. You'll need to do some work. Google is your friend, as is the FAQ.

• The chances of losing one DLCI and not the other is a lot lower than logic would say it should be.

• The DSL backup will be tricky, but not impossible if you need to NAT to use it.

• The DSL backup will be impossible if you need to use NAT on both frame and DSL.

• 26xx IOS 12.3 base IP does NOT support BGP. You will need to downgrade to IOS 12.2 or upgrade to as 12.3 feature set which does include BGP.

• This does not protect you from a frame link with high BER. But then, nothing does :-(

Good luck and have fun!

Larry,

Why not build a VPN with a higher metric route over the DSL line for your backup link. This way either side can initiate the connection and you don't have to deal with the hassles of BGP.

-Richard

Richard,

Yes, that will work for the DSL backup, but what about the two frames (that connect to different cities/routers)?

Larry Smith lesmith (at) ecsis.net

Thanks,

As for challenges, NAT is not requried (or desired) on any; current IOS does support BGP (at least the commands are there) and load balancing is not required. Plan old routing.

EG: DLCI to City A as primary DLCI to City B as secondary DSL as frame "fail-over".

Larry Smith lesmith (at) ecsis.net

Larry,

You want to load balance/fail-over the two PVCs? You could build a PPP multilink group to accomplish this, and its still simplier than using BGP, in my opinion.

-Richard

Richard,

As mentioned earlier in this thread, load balancing is not required. Plan old routing.

EG: DLCI to City A as primary DLCI to City B as secondary DSL as frame "fail-over".

Larry Smith lesmith (at) ecsis.net