Help in selecting router please

Mon Oct 2 16:27:10 PDT 2006

 Sorry for the late reply. Bogged down with other issues.

On 20-Sep-06 My Homeland Security "observers" reported that kashani said:
> Nicole wrote:
>> Hi
>>  I was wondering if anyone could assist in helping me with a problem.
>> 
>>   I have bandwidth that is exceeding our 1Gb fiber drop from our
>> colo provider, so I need to add another. So do so, I will need to move to a
>> router or routing switch that can use BGP (as that is all that our colo
>> providor
>> offers) to support load balancing across the two fiber drops. Then provide
>> at
>> least 2 preferably 4 or more 1Gb copper or fiber ports to connect to our
>> switches. 
>> 
>>  Once we start talking multiple gigabit routing, I am in over my head and
>>  the
>> costs seem extreemly high. I was wondering if anyone could reccomend a
>> solution
>> or router that may be less than stratosferic in cost. 
> 
> I was last a routing geek in 2001 and haven't really kept up with the 
> technology. However I don't think there is enough info here about your 
> infrastructure to make a decent suggestion. Here's a couple of questions 
> to get things going and some router ramblings.
> 
>       Are you getting a connection to a different provider or the same
provider?

 The bgp would simply be to balance two connections from the same providor.

> If it's the same provider you can etherchannel or whatever your vendors 
> calls it from your gear to their gear with your current switch. Not a 
> terribly fancy solution, but it should work if both sides are reasonably 
> modern.

 Sadly not an option for them since we are connected to their main router to
get that level of bandwidth.

>       If it is two providers you're pretty much stuck with BGP. That leads us 
> to the next question, do you need/want full BGP routes?

 Not forseable in the near future.

> I might consider asking for a default route from each provider, 
> 0.0.0.0/0, and then 10-15k of their peering routes rather than the whole 
> 120-150k routes a full table could be. Your total BGP table should be no 
> more than 40-50k routes which could fit into 32MB IIRC. That means you 
> can get a cheap(er) routing engine w/128-256MB for your current big dumb 
> switch. Of course all that depends on which big dumb switch you already 
> own. I wouldn't do full routes with two providers with anything less 
> than 128MB for the record and more RAM is always better.
> 
>       Are you going to be pushing significantly more traffic in the near
future?

 That is our hope of course, but no one can ever say how soon.

> If yes, it might be worth your time to have a real routing 
> infrastructure rather than half assing it. Full BGP tables allows you to 
> pick better and hopefully faster routes, load balance across many 
> providers, which leads to fault tolerance at least at the routing layer. 
> Additionally it allows you to negotiate bandwidth prices and gives you 
> the knobs to use your bandwidth as effectively as possible.

 Right now I have been told find the best but cheapest solution. 

> You can also go the opposite way and keep a smaller network and use a 
> content delivery network if you're all http or something similar. CDNs 
> are often no cheaper than doing yourself, but require less initial cash 
> and personnel.

 CDN's are expensive and also usually require either bulk payments for
bandwidth, used or not, or per MB of transfer which would be too expensive in
the long run. 

 So far I have been given a quote for either a cisco 6504-E or a foundry
fastiron super-x. Both at about 25K.

 If anyone else is in the business and would like to quote on this, please let
me know. Other comments and suggestions of course welcomed!

 Thanks!

   Nicole

> Ramin

--
*******                |\ __ /|   (`\             *******
 *   *                 | o_o  |__  ) )             *   *
  * *                 //      \\                    * *
   *   Blessed Be!        |      Powered by FreeBSD  *
----------------------(((---(((--------------------------------