Redundant BGP for lower cost

Fri Mar 5 16:57:47 UTC 2010

OPSF (in this scenario) is easier to set up then BGP...but check out
http://www.openmaniak.com/quagga.php.

On Fri, 2010-03-05 at 10:46 -0600, Alex Thurlow wrote:

> I have to say that this looks like a nice solution to me, and I've 
> definitely had many people point me to OSPF.  One problem is that I've 
> never run OSPF before.  Some googling brings of a few results on 
> implementation, but can someone recommend a good place to look or a book 
> to get to really get it all figured out?
> 
> Thanks,
> Alex
> 
> 
> On 3/4/2010 11:23 AM, Jack Carrozzo wrote:
> > If you want to keep it cheap, roll out another Quagga edge - one to 
> > each peer. Drop default into OSPF from both edges, iBGP over a GE 
> > between them. If one toasts you'll only lose half your routes for 
> > 1s-ish, or however long you set your OSPF keepalives.
> >
> > While you're at it, add extra fans and run the edge systems off solid 
> > state disks or CF cards.
> >
> > Or, buy $real hardware.
> >
> > -Jack Carrozzo
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Alex Thurlow <alex at blastro.com 
> > <mailto:alex at blastro.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a full time network
> >     admin, but we're a small company and I'm the only one handling
> >     this.  Our budget is also not huge, but we're at the point where
> >     extended downtime would cost us enough money that we can spend
> >     some money to fix the problem.
> >
> >      Here's my situation:  I have two providers, each handing me
> >     gigabit ethernet.  I'm getting full BGP feeds and handling them
> >     with a Linux/Quagga router.  We max out at about 100kpps, as we're
> >     mostly pushing video which gives us a large packet size.  It works
> >     fine, and I've been happy with it so far.  But, we've gotten to
> >     the point where I want a backup router of some sort in case
> >     something happens to that one, what with the fans and disks that
> >     could fail.  I see a few options.
> >
> >     1. Just set up another Quagga box and use keepalived or some other
> >     HA solution.
> >     2. Buy a Cisco/Juniper/whatever and then have the Quagga box as
> >     backup.
> >     3. I have a 6500 behind the router that's just doing switching.
> >      Could I have something switch that to static route all traffic to
> >     one of my providers if something happened to the router?  The 6500
> >     has Sup1A with MSFC2 running IOS native.
> >
> >     On the Cisco side, I see that we could probably run a 7200VXR with
> >     NPE-G1 (about $6000 on ebay).  Moving to the Sup720, even used is
> >     probably out of our price range.
> >
> >     What do you guys think I should use here?
> >
> >     Thanks,
> >     Alex
> >
> >
> >