Help in selecting router please

Wed Sep 20 16:47:27 PDT 2006

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?

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.

	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?

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?

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.

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.

Ramin