Networking – Combining Two Identical Fiber Optic Broadband Lines

fibernetworking

I am looking for a way I could combine two 100Mbit fiber optic lines into a single connection for our office. I assume it involves some Cisco learning or something similar.

Do I need to configure some big router to load-balance the NATing in some way?

I assume that many of you have done something similar and hope someone could share their knowledge or at least provide me some tips on how to do this.

Best Answer

Depending on the technology you are employing, there may be many ways to achieve what you are trying to do:

  • if your fiber links are Ethernet links and you can control the configuration of switches at both ends of the link, you may use 802.3ad link aggregation (also known as Trunking or Fast Etherchannel) to transparently aggregate at Layer 2
  • if you are working with some kind of Internet Service Provider and your links are employing PPP as the encapsulation protocol, MPPP or Multilink PPP would do something rather similar at an encapsulation layer
  • if no Layer 2 option is available, multipath routing might be an option
    • either with the help of routing protocols as done for BGP multipath load sharing
    • or with some additional routing logic as described in the LARTC howto using a feature implemented in Linux, but in no ways unique to it

The whole task would of course involve "Cisco learning" if the device you have is a Cisco router, but other router vendors would provide this kind of feature set as well.

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