From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Aug 13 23:31:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA27801 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 23:31:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from panda.hilink.com.au (panda.hilink.com.au [203.8.15.25]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA27796 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 1997 23:31:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from danny@localhost) by panda.hilink.com.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA25120; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 16:34:49 +1000 (EST) Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 16:34:49 +1000 (EST) From: "Daniel O'Callaghan" To: "Randy A. Katz" cc: isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Multi-homed - Load Balancing - No Single Point of Failure In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970813222651.00a09d90@ccsales.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Randy A. Katz wrote: > Given two upstream providers is it possible to use a single or two FreeBSD > boxes to do BGP routing and load balancing? And if so, what equipment > should we use? T1 Cards? Routers? > > My current provider is telling us we need a Cisco 4700 (20-30,000). I was > thinking if I could get a powerfull FreeBSD box (200MHz Pro/MMX with 128MB > RAM) to do the routing it would be just as good and about 20,000 less > expensive...please let me know if I'm off my rocker! You *are* off your rocker to get a PPro200 128MB RAM. Depending on you bandwidth needs, you only need a P-133 with 64MB of RAM :-) I have a 686-120/P150+ with 5 ethernet cards and about 1000 kbps flowing through it - i.e. a 66% utilised T1. CPU utilisation is about 10%, and a significant amount of that is servicing interrupts on the PCI-NE2000 ethernet cards, and checking the 470 ipfw rules I have loaded. Use de or fxp ethernet cards in preference (the two busy cards in my box are de type). I'd recommend a 686-150/P200+ to keep packet latency down. Use gated for BGP peering. Dennis will probably remind you to look at www.etinc.com regarding synchronous serial cards. /* Daniel O'Callaghan */ /* HiLink Internet danny@hilink.com.au */ /* FreeBSD - works hard, plays hard... danny@freebsd.org */