I have two separate Metro Ethernet links (via fiber optic) from the datacenter to the NOC. Each link is 10Mbps. I need to utilize both links (bonding) and make sure sure that if one of the links goes down (redundancy), I won’t lose half of my packets. Bonding and redundancy are my goals.
Initially I tried Cisco Catalyst’s EtherChannel feature to accommodate this need since I learned about EtherChannel when I was doing my CNAP. Unfortunately EtherChannel cannot fit in this scenario due to my Metro Ethernet provider’s network setup. They use Cisco Catalyst 3750 switches to aggregate customers links from each POP to their headquarters. My first attempt was to establish trunk mode EtherChannel (802.1q) with Cisco Catalyst 2950 on one side and Cisco Catalyst Express 500 on the other side. Later I noticed that this is not doable since trunking requires MTU size to be larger than 1500 (1504) when my provider strictly limits MTU size to 1500 and negotiation between my 2 switches to establish trunking wouldn’t work since my switches’ BPDU packets are “intercepted” by my provider’s switches. Basically my Cisco switches were trying to establish a VLAN trunk with my provider’s directly connected switches when my switches are supposed to be negotiating to each other.
I consulted a few experienced people including an employee of the provider, and they told me to use access mode EtherChannel instead of the trunk mode EtherChannel. This is not possible with Cisco Catalyst Express 500, which only offers trunk mode EtherChannel. I bought a Cisco Catalyst 2960 to replace the Cisco Catalyst Express 500 hoping that access mode EtherChannel would work, it didn’t. Even if it did work, it wouldn’t be aware of link state changes since my switches do not connect directly to the fiber cables. There is a fiber-to-ethernet bridge for each side of each link, so my switches will always detect both links as always up as long as the bridges are up.
Since link states cannot be used as a measurement in this scenario, I had to find another way. MikroTik RouterOS offers not only bonding feature, but fail-over mechanism too! The fail-over mechanism uses ARP packets to detect link failures, it is far from perfect but at least it works.
I will add examples later, but for now have a look at this. Hopefully I will discuss EoIP and EoIP over PPTP too.
References:
http://www.mikrotik.com/testdocs/ros/3.0/interface/bonding.php
Initially I tried Cisco Catalyst’s EtherChannel feature to accommodate this need since I learned about EtherChannel when I was doing my CNAP. Unfortunately EtherChannel cannot fit in this scenario due to my Metro Ethernet provider’s network setup. They use Cisco Catalyst 3750 switches to aggregate customers links from each POP to their headquarters. My first attempt was to establish trunk mode EtherChannel (802.1q) with Cisco Catalyst 2950 on one side and Cisco Catalyst Express 500 on the other side. Later I noticed that this is not doable since trunking requires MTU size to be larger than 1500 (1504) when my provider strictly limits MTU size to 1500 and negotiation between my 2 switches to establish trunking wouldn’t work since my switches’ BPDU packets are “intercepted” by my provider’s switches. Basically my Cisco switches were trying to establish a VLAN trunk with my provider’s directly connected switches when my switches are supposed to be negotiating to each other.
I consulted a few experienced people including an employee of the provider, and they told me to use access mode EtherChannel instead of the trunk mode EtherChannel. This is not possible with Cisco Catalyst Express 500, which only offers trunk mode EtherChannel. I bought a Cisco Catalyst 2960 to replace the Cisco Catalyst Express 500 hoping that access mode EtherChannel would work, it didn’t. Even if it did work, it wouldn’t be aware of link state changes since my switches do not connect directly to the fiber cables. There is a fiber-to-ethernet bridge for each side of each link, so my switches will always detect both links as always up as long as the bridges are up.
Since link states cannot be used as a measurement in this scenario, I had to find another way. MikroTik RouterOS offers not only bonding feature, but fail-over mechanism too! The fail-over mechanism uses ARP packets to detect link failures, it is far from perfect but at least it works.
I will add examples later, but for now have a look at this. Hopefully I will discuss EoIP and EoIP over PPTP too.
References:
http://www.mikrotik.com/testdocs/ros/3.0/interface/bonding.php
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