Cisco – How to aggregate multiple WAN interfaces (GE) together on Cisco Routers

ciscorouterwan

We have 2 P2P (8M X 2) connection in between HQ and Factory with Cisco 2951 routers at both ends. We are running these links with OSPF cost set to 90. Both links are active and running simultaneously for backup and increased bandwidth (2 X 8M = 16M). So hosts from LAN side sending traffic to both the links.

But in the case of one link goes down host interruption occurs for a while during other link takes over all the outbound traffic. I'm wondering why not we combine these WAN links together act as a single interface so that users don't feel the interruption.

I have read several article on Cisco web portal on this but can't decide which technology will suit this scenario most as EtherChannel, MFR, BVI etc?

Is there any easy way to combine these interface together having both the links running at the same time.

Best Answer

You certainly can load balance at layer 3 with simple static routes. You'll want to configure ip load-sharing per-packet on each interface. Be sure to enable Cisco Express Forwarding, CEF.