Cisco 1841 with Muliple WAN – load balancing & failover

cisco

I have a Cisco 1841 router with 4 interfaces: FE 0/0 , FE0/1, AUX, CONSOLE. I have DSL line (WAN – PPP0E) which goes to FE0/1 & FE 0/0 goes to my LAN Switch.

Now we want to get another DSL line for the purpose of Load balncing/bonding/failover. I have some questions:

  1. Is it feasible to use two WAN interfaces for this purpose? I meant people are using this kind of scenario. Any opinions…
  2. Hardware: Do i need to buy Cisco WAN interface expansion card module or
  3. I just can buy Cisco etherswitch 4 port module (which can connect to my LAN switch)

I really appreciate any feedback for experts..

Thanks,
Hemal

Best Answer

Is your LAN switch managed? In other words, is it VLAN capable?

If it's VLAN capable, you could have one VLAN on the switch for each DSL connection, and trunk them both back into Fa0/1, then split them back out on the router's subinterfaces.

You could buy either a PPPoA/PPPoE modem and an ethernet HWIC, or an ADSL HWIC, but be aware they're bloody expensive.

The cisco etherswitch modules are similarly pricy. I'd probably be tempted to get a second hand Cisco Catalyst 2950 off ebay, and use that for the Vlan solution.

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