Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-05-20 Thread Rodney Dunn

Drew,

Something that was just released that you might be interested
in if you haven't already found an alternate solution.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/iosswrel/ps5207/products_feature_guide09186a0080221544.html

It's a new feature in 12.3(8)T.

Rodney



On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 10:39:16PM -0500, Drew Weaver wrote:
> Does anyone know of an article, or documentation regarding load
> balancing the traffic on 3 or more FastEthernet interfaces on the outgoing
> direction? Right now we're running BGP internally, and the routes that are
> being chosen based upon the final BGP decision step or what I like to call
> the 'IP address tie breaker' which is not always optimal. We have a cisco
> 7500 that is connected to 4 other Cisco 7500s which each have 45Mbps ds3s to
> the Internet, we would like to load balance the outgoing traffic across all
> 4 of these 7500s, can anyone shine any advice my way? I noticed that there
> are instructions on Cisco's site regarding doing LB on 12000s.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyways thanks in advance ;-)
> 
>  
> 
> -Drew
> 
>  
> 


Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-25 Thread Nick Feamster

On Sat, Mar 13, 2004 at 04:19:40PM -0800, Will Yardley wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 11:37:25PM -0500, Joe Abley wrote:
> > On 12 Mar 2004, at 23:24, joe mcguckin wrote:
> > 
> > > I suspect that each FE goes to a different AS...
> > 
> > In that case, sample/count outbound traffic volumes by 
> > (prefix/AS/AS_PATH/something), sort the resulting list, and develop an 
> > import policy based on the top N entries which shares the traffic by 
> > tweaking some other attribute to avoid the last-resort tie-break.
> 
> The tool "ehnt" is pretty useful for generating a "top" style list of
> ASes in order of the amount of traffic you're sending their way.
> 
> By the way, w/r/t to the tiebreaker stuff, note that (on Cisco devices)
> if you don't have "bgp bestpath compare-routerid" set, the route that
> was received first will be preferred. This minimizes route-flap, but can
> cause weird shifts in your traffic patterns when one bgp session or
> another goes down (credit goes to Mark Nagel for figuring out this one
> for me).
> 
Also, check out:

http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/feamster.html

for some general guidelines, pitfalls, etc.  (The paper linked from the
presentation recently appeared in ACM Sigcomm CCR.)

-Nick



Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-16 Thread Richard J. Sears

Hi Drew - 

We have 6 backbones distributed across two 7507s and we messed around
with a lot of different ways to make this happen. MEDs, Weights, manual
BGP configurations every time one of the connections would get
overloaded (even at 2am), you name it - we tried it, and in the end we
determined that we needed something that could keep an eye on everything
and do it automatically within guidelines I had set.

In the end, we headed the route of performance-based routing
optimization hardware. After testing many different vendors, we choose
the RouteScience PathControl box to make my life (as well as the life of
my lead backbone engineer) much, much simpler.

About a month or two ago, there was quite a discussion on
route-optimization hardware on the list including a lot of different
ideas. 

If you do a search on the list for RouteScience or route optimization,
you should hit the core of the discussion around the different platforms.

If you need more info, feel free to contact me off-list.

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 22:39:16 -0500
Drew Weaver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Does anyone know of an article, or documentation regarding load
> balancing the traffic on 3 or more FastEthernet interfaces on the outgoing
> direction? Right now we're running BGP internally, and the routes that are
> being chosen based upon the final BGP decision step or what I like to call
> the 'IP address tie breaker' which is not always optimal. We have a cisco
> 7500 that is connected to 4 other Cisco 7500s which each have 45Mbps ds3s to
> the Internet, we would like to load balance the outgoing traffic across all
> 4 of these 7500s, can anyone shine any advice my way? I noticed that there
> are instructions on Cisco's site regarding doing LB on 12000s.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyways thanks in advance ;-)
> 
>  
> 
> -Drew
> 
>  
> 


**
Richard J. Sears
Vice President 
American Digital Network  

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.adnc.com

858.576.4272 - Phone
858.427.2401 - Fax


I fly because it releases my mind 
from the tyranny of petty things . . 


"Work like you don't need the money, love like you've
never been hurt and dance like you do when nobody's
watching."



Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-15 Thread Bruce Pinsky
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
Joe Abley wrote:

|
|
| On 12 Mar 2004, at 23:24, joe mcguckin wrote:
|
|> Patrick,
|>
|> I suspect that each FE goes to a different AS...
|
|
| In that case, sample/count outbound traffic volumes by
| (prefix/AS/AS_PATH/something), sort the resulting list, and develop an
| import policy based on the top N entries which shares the traffic by
| tweaking some other attribute to avoid the last-resort tie-break.
|
| Or bypass the measurement part, and make wild guesses about where your
| traffic is going, and apply an import policy based on that. Either way,
| lather, rinse, repeat.
|
| There might be something relevant in the slot I did in this tutorial in
| Richmond Hill:
|
|   http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/te.html
|
And products from folks like Proficient Networks and Routescience can
automate the process for you.
- --
=
bep
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (MingW32)
iD8DBQFAVgGrE1XcgMgrtyYRAo3xAJ4qwszZ/lXxMeMJ5jF2OD9LDaMR/QCeOjz+
a8Mzb383mIOoEE2J0IzVq+I=
=4QaS
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-14 Thread Patrick W . Gilmore
On Mar 13, 2004, at 4:57 PM, Stephen J. Wilcox wrote:

He'll be okie.  It's just a little difficult for BGP to "load balance"
outbound bits when the bulk of the Internet these days is 2 AS hops
away from each of four upstreams.  Not impossible, but it doesn't
happen by default either.
I used to do this ages ago, I did it by setting MEDs on the incoming 
BGP
prefixes, in my route-maps I arbitrarily gave some nets (/8s or 
smaller) lower
med on one feed and higher on the others to influence path selection.

I shy away from anything but the gentlest of tweaks so I personally 
wouldnt mess
with as-path, localpref, weight etc
Yeah, probably a good idea not to use Weights, but not sure about 
AS_PATH.  Nothing wrong with a prepend here or there, IMHO. :)

But also nothing wrong with setting the MEDs if you like.  Just be fore 
to have "always compare MED" on, or MEDs between multiple providers are 
not useful (which you obviously had set or this wouldn't work).

I kinda like setting the origin code.  No one pays attention to it, but 
it is in the selection criteria.  that way you can use MEDs from the 
same provider and still influence routes between providers.

--
TTFN,
patrick


Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-13 Thread Will Yardley

On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 11:37:25PM -0500, Joe Abley wrote:
> On 12 Mar 2004, at 23:24, joe mcguckin wrote:
> 
> > I suspect that each FE goes to a different AS...
> 
> In that case, sample/count outbound traffic volumes by 
> (prefix/AS/AS_PATH/something), sort the resulting list, and develop an 
> import policy based on the top N entries which shares the traffic by 
> tweaking some other attribute to avoid the last-resort tie-break.

The tool "ehnt" is pretty useful for generating a "top" style list of
ASes in order of the amount of traffic you're sending their way.

By the way, w/r/t to the tiebreaker stuff, note that (on Cisco devices)
if you don't have "bgp bestpath compare-routerid" set, the route that
was received first will be preferred. This minimizes route-flap, but can
cause weird shifts in your traffic patterns when one bgp session or
another goes down (credit goes to Mark Nagel for figuring out this one
for me).

-- 
"Since when is skepticism un-American?
Dissent's not treason but they talk like it's the same..."
(Sleater-Kinney - "Combat Rock")



Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-13 Thread Stephen J. Wilcox

> He'll be okie.  It's just a little difficult for BGP to "load balance" 
> outbound bits when the bulk of the Internet these days is 2 AS hops 
> away from each of four upstreams.  Not impossible, but it doesn't 
> happen by default either.

I used to do this ages ago, I did it by setting MEDs on the incoming BGP 
prefixes, in my route-maps I arbitrarily gave some nets (/8s or smaller) lower 
med on one feed and higher on the others to influence path selection.

I shy away from anything but the gentlest of tweaks so I personally wouldnt mess 
with as-path, localpref, weight etc

Steve



RE: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-12 Thread Michel Py

> Patrick W.Gilmore wrote:
> It's just a little difficult for BGP to "load balance"
> outbound bits when the bulk of the Internet these days
> is 2 AS hops away from each of four upstreams.  Not
> impossible, but it doesn't happen by default either.

Indeed.

If the following conditions are met:

a) all four upstreams are transit providers (and therefore even a
default to any would be fair game)

b) the goal is to distribute more evenly (in terms of bandwidth) the
egress traffic between the four upstreams (in other terms, the egress
traffic tends to peg one of the upstreams (which are being paid to carry
the traffic) for no clear reason)

IMHO there is nothing wrong with some WAEG route-map to police egress
traffic to a different upstream that the one the BGP process would have
chose at the 5th tie-breaker, all 4 including the AS-PATH being equal.

My $0.02 plus tax.

Michel.



Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-12 Thread Joe Abley


On 12 Mar 2004, at 23:24, joe mcguckin wrote:

Patrick,

I suspect that each FE goes to a different AS...
In that case, sample/count outbound traffic volumes by 
(prefix/AS/AS_PATH/something), sort the resulting list, and develop an 
import policy based on the top N entries which shares the traffic by 
tweaking some other attribute to avoid the last-resort tie-break.

Or bypass the measurement part, and make wild guesses about where your 
traffic is going, and apply an import policy based on that. Either way, 
lather, rinse, repeat.

There might be something relevant in the slot I did in this tutorial in 
Richmond Hill:

  http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/te.html

Joe



Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-12 Thread Patrick W . Gilmore
On Mar 12, 2004, at 11:24 PM, joe mcguckin wrote:

I suspect that each FE goes to a different AS...
Yeppers.

We've been corresponding privately, and you got it right (unlike me).

He'll be okie.  It's just a little difficult for BGP to "load balance" 
outbound bits when the bulk of the Internet these days is 2 AS hops 
away from each of four upstreams.  Not impossible, but it doesn't 
happen by default either.

--
TTFN,
patrick


Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-12 Thread joe mcguckin


Patrick,

I suspect that each FE goes to a different AS...


On 3/12/04 7:27 PM, "Patrick W.Gilmore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> On Mar 12, 2004, at 10:39 PM, Drew Weaver wrote:
> 
>>     Does anyone know of an article, or documentation regarding
>> load balancing the traffic on 3 or more FastEthernet interfaces on the
>> outgoing direction? Right now we're running BGP internally, and the
>> routes that are being chosen based upon the final BGP decision step or
>> what I like to call the 'IP address tie breaker' which is not always
>> optimal. We have a cisco 7500 that is connected to 4 other Cisco 7500s
>> which each have 45Mbps ds3s to the Internet, we would like to load
>> balance the outgoing traffic across all 4 of these 7500s, can anyone
>> shine any advice my way? I noticed that there are instructions on
>> Cisco's site regarding doing LB on 12000s.
> 
> Load balancing with BGP is the same on any cisco router.
> 
> Are you doing BGP with the routers on the other side of those DS3s?  If
> you are, you will need their help in load balancing properly.  Get them
> to allow you peering with a loopback interface and use equal cost
> static routes to do the load balancing to that loopback interface.



Re: Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-12 Thread Patrick W . Gilmore
On Mar 12, 2004, at 10:39 PM, Drew Weaver wrote:

    Does anyone know of an article, or documentation regarding 
load balancing the traffic on 3 or more FastEthernet interfaces on the 
outgoing direction? Right now we're running BGP internally, and the 
routes that are being chosen based upon the final BGP decision step or 
what I like to call the 'IP address tie breaker' which is not always 
optimal. We have a cisco 7500 that is connected to 4 other Cisco 7500s 
which each have 45Mbps ds3s to the Internet, we would like to load 
balance the outgoing traffic across all 4 of these 7500s, can anyone 
shine any advice my way? I noticed that there are instructions on 
Cisco's site regarding doing LB on 12000s.
Load balancing with BGP is the same on any cisco router.

Are you doing BGP with the routers on the other side of those DS3s?  If 
you are, you will need their help in load balancing properly.  Get them 
to allow you peering with a loopback interface and use equal cost 
static routes to do the load balancing to that loopback interface.

--
TTFN,
patrick


Load Balancing Multiple DS3s (outgoing) on a 7500

2004-03-12 Thread Drew Weaver








    Does anyone know of an article, or documentation
regarding load balancing the traffic on 3 or more FastEthernet interfaces on
the outgoing direction? Right now we're running BGP internally, and the
routes that are being chosen based upon the final BGP decision step or what I like
to call the 'IP address tie breaker' which is not always optimal. We
have a cisco 7500 that is connected to 4 other Cisco 7500s which each have
45Mbps ds3s to the Internet, we would like to load balance the outgoing traffic
across all 4 of these 7500s, can anyone shine any advice my way? I noticed that
there are instructions on Cisco's site regarding doing LB on 12000s.

 

Anyways thanks in advance ;-)

 

-Drew