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Multiple ISP balance/distribute traffic out?

I'm looking for something that will allow me to distribute (not neccesarily "load balance" in the technical definition) outbound NAT connections from people in our office over 2 T-1's, each going to a different ISP. The solutions I've seen so far consist of very expensive load balancing hardware, and even this is geared more toward load balancing INCOMING connections.. I need outbound. Extra bonus if there is a way for the device/software to detect a dead link, and stop routing traffic over that link until it comes back up.

Anyway, trying w/ Astaro, and looking in the manual, the LB feature seems to be, again, for inbound connections, not out. I don't have a license, so I can't get in and play around with the load balancing feature to determine if there's a way to hax0r it to work the way i want it to.

TIA,
Brooks

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0 Biffa over 23 years ago

Originally posted by Brooks Ellis:
I'm looking for something that will allow me to distribute (not neccesarily "load balance" in the technical definition) outbound NAT connections from people in our office over 2 T-1's, each going to a different ISP. The solutions I've seen so far consist of very expensive load balancing hardware, and even this is geared more toward load balancing INCOMING connections.. I need outbound. Extra bonus if there is a way for the device/software to detect a dead link, and stop routing traffic over that link until it comes back up.

Anyway, trying w/ Astaro, and looking in the manual, the LB feature seems to be, again, for inbound connections, not out. I don't have a license, so I can't get in and play around with the load balancing feature to determine if there's a way to hax0r it to work the way i want it to.

TIA,
Brooks
To be honest with you the best way to do this is to get your ISP to configure it at the router, that is unless you have two ISPs ;-)

Astaro as you rightly summised has load balancing for incoming traffic.

You can configure it to have two external connections, and use the routing controls to send traffic down each one as per neccessary, also you can use the NAT controls to control traffic going out as well, but this only works if you have defined groups of IP's that you want to manage.

The theory is that Astaro should be able to handle two default gateways and that if one falls over the other one takes its place but I have yet to see that happen in action, what I have done is had to NAT rules one for each gateway on the firewall and if one fell down then its a 30 second switch in webadmin to change the gateway, but its not automatic and requires you to be there to do it.

Others mileage may vary.

There are some reasonably priced switches that can do it but I can't find the links at the moment if I do I'll come back to this thread and let you know.
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0 Biffa over 23 years ago

Originally posted by Brooks Ellis:
I'm looking for something that will allow me to distribute (not neccesarily "load balance" in the technical definition) outbound NAT connections from people in our office over 2 T-1's, each going to a different ISP. The solutions I've seen so far consist of very expensive load balancing hardware, and even this is geared more toward load balancing INCOMING connections.. I need outbound. Extra bonus if there is a way for the device/software to detect a dead link, and stop routing traffic over that link until it comes back up.

Anyway, trying w/ Astaro, and looking in the manual, the LB feature seems to be, again, for inbound connections, not out. I don't have a license, so I can't get in and play around with the load balancing feature to determine if there's a way to hax0r it to work the way i want it to.

TIA,
Brooks
To be honest with you the best way to do this is to get your ISP to configure it at the router, that is unless you have two ISPs ;-)

Astaro as you rightly summised has load balancing for incoming traffic.

You can configure it to have two external connections, and use the routing controls to send traffic down each one as per neccessary, also you can use the NAT controls to control traffic going out as well, but this only works if you have defined groups of IP's that you want to manage.

The theory is that Astaro should be able to handle two default gateways and that if one falls over the other one takes its place but I have yet to see that happen in action, what I have done is had to NAT rules one for each gateway on the firewall and if one fell down then its a 30 second switch in webadmin to change the gateway, but its not automatic and requires you to be there to do it.

Others mileage may vary.

There are some reasonably priced switches that can do it but I can't find the links at the moment if I do I'll come back to this thread and let you know.
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0 Biffa over 23 years ago in reply to Biffa

Originally posted by Biffa:

[There are some reasonably priced switches that can do it but I can't find the links at the moment if I do I'll come back to this thread and let you know.
Here it is its made by Nexland and the URL is
Nexland Pro800Turbo

First Home/Small Business Router with Dual Modem Connections
• Surf & Download Multiple Files/MP3s at Blazing Speed
• Each Connection Backs Up the Other Should One Go Down - Auto Failover
• Mix Cable/DSL/SDSL/T1 Internet Connection Types
• Solid Firewall Protection for the LAN with 5 Definable Privilege Groups
• High-Speed 8-Port Switch for Adding Additional Computers
• Easy Setup in Just 5 Minutes
• Auto-Dialing Analog/ISDN Serial Port for Third Backup
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0 Predated over 23 years ago in reply to Biffa

I am also very keen on finding a way to do this
I have 2 isps, one which gives me unlimited data on a 256k connection and one which charges me when I go over 5gb of data but it is an 8mbps connection
also the first one isn't very reliable
I want to be able to use the first one and have it switch to the second one when the first one falls over
also some sort of way so that the 5gb is used every month would be nice so I can make full use of my 5gb of high speed
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