Mike, On Wed, 2003-02-19 at 11:51, Mike Nielsen wrote: > Hi all. > > I'm putting together a few proposals for a client who has a T3 with four > 4down1up cable modems. They want to loadbalance the bandwidth. I am going > to propose a linux box to do this but for completeness sake I am curious what > products do others use to do this. I am not sure if there are to many here using other products. You may have to check around with other groups out there. Possibly groups around the products you are considering. > I am toying with the FatPipe line of products but having not used any or know > anyone who has it's difficult to recommend. Looked into it, but it was a bit pricey so I elected for alternatives. Some pretty cool solutions are offered by a company called SysMaster, also pricey. http://www.sysmaster.com/ I liked their solutions because the traffic does not actually go through their boxes. It simply plug's into your network, and you tell it the gateways, and then all other machines use it as their gateway. It then load balances the connections or what ever else you want via intelligent routing logic. At least that was my understanding. Where as FatPipe products required the traffic to pass through its interfaces. So you are limited in the # of connections that can be load balanced due to interface limitations. This could also be a problem with a Linux solution, but there are many work arounds. Like a motherboard with allot of pci slots. Or my preference, nics that have multiple interfaces. Then each pci slot can be two or more interfaces. > That being said what "Brand" name boxen have you all used, or replaced with > iproute2 boxes? Now working on a limited budget the only device I could purchase that sounded like it would meet my needs came from http://www.nexland.com/ I bought, tested, and returned a ISB Pro 800 turbo. A good idea, price point, and even color. Cool little unit. To bad it did not work for my needs. I was awaiting a new firmware release to resolve the problems I was experiencing. I patiently awaited a firmware release, that for me did not come in time. So I sent the unit back, and worked on a Linux solution. NexLand is smart in offering a 30 day money back guarantee, which I used. My linux solution has been up and running without any problems now for 259 days. > What sort of problems are common with commercial boxes compared to linux or > vice versa >From my experience with the one product, Nexland's ISB Pro 800, compared to Linux. Well my Linux solution works, and the NexLand one did not work. The Linux one I can service, rework, recode, etc. All others I am at the mercy of the manufacturer. Personally I like to be responsible for as much as possible. -- Sincerely, William L. Thomson Jr. Support Group Obsidian-Studios Inc. 439 Amber Way Petaluma, Ca. 94952 Phone 707.766.9509 Fax 707.766.8989 http://www.obsidian-studios.com
