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We have two sites that each have an internet connection and have a dedicated dark fibre between them. Each site has it's own IP space and we have an AS number. We're looking to be resilient to failure of the internet connection to either site and obviously need a pair of HA routers (one on each site) to achieve this.

The basis requirements that the routers need to support are:

  • Able to run 2 bgp sessions (one with the ISP, one with the other site router)
  • Option to take a full table from the upstream ISPs would be nice.
  • Able to provide HA gateways on the LAN side (e.g. 192.168.0.254 will automatically migrate if it's host router lost power)
  • A dedicated appliance rather than a server running Linux / BSD - Uses r/w memory rather than hdd to store configuration.
  • Not crazy expensive.

Of the bountiful array of routers available, what are the features we should be searching for to achieve this kind of failover, and which features should be heavily weighted for this comparison (which are most important)

Tom O'Connor
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Jona
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  • How far is this dark fiber line? What equipment do you have in place currently? – Bad Dos Jun 12 '12 at 15:47
  • The fibre run is some hundreds of metres, our sites are either side of a road. – Jona Jun 12 '12 at 15:51
  • Shopping questions are generally not within the scope of this site, see http://serverfault.com/faq – Hyppy Jun 12 '12 at 15:55
  • A shame this question has been closed as I feel there probably would be some canonical answers for what I imagine is a fairly classic scenario. – Jona Jun 12 '12 at 16:11
  • If we can rework this to be less of a shopping question ("What might a router need"..etc), then we can reopen it. – Tom O'Connor Jun 12 '12 at 16:23
  • I've had a go at re-working, would welcome more input. – Jona Jun 12 '12 at 16:50
  • Instead of asking "what router should I use" I believe you should ask what technologies you could use to accomplish the failover in this situation. – resmon6 Jun 12 '12 at 19:51
  • If you want true HA, you want 4 routers.. 2 on each side. ;) – Tom O'Connor Jun 12 '12 at 23:44

1 Answers1

2

Have you looked at Vyatta?

What differentiates a "dedicated device" from a "server running Linux/BSD"?

You do know that Juniper routers run a BSD variant, right?

bahamat
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Joel K
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  • heh... exactly what I was thinking, two Juniper SRX devices but then he said no BSD? – SpacemanSpiff Jun 12 '12 at 15:48
  • A box with GNU/Linux or any of the BSDs is NOT an appliance, it just isn't one. – pfo Jun 12 '12 at 15:51
  • Thanks for your answer I didn't know that Juniper ran a BSD variant I think as @pfo mentioned it's not the OS I'm worried about more that the device is more appliance like than server like e.g. no hard disk, etc. – Jona Jun 12 '12 at 16:12
  • Use a cheap SSD to avoid spinning media. If low cost is your main motivator, a Dell server from two years ago will outperform a sam vintage Cisco. And you can get an old 1U server for a song. – Joel K Jun 12 '12 at 18:24