RE: Multiple external Networks...
- From: "Ray Dzek" <Ray.Dzek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "[ISAserver.org Discussion List]" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:37:55 -0800
Look at Radware Linkproof. Hardware solution. Fairly bombproof.
Friendly company to deal with. Ours has been in production for 2 years.
________________________________
From: Ball, Dan [mailto:DBall@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 12:28 PM
To: [ISAserver.org Discussion List]
Subject: [isalist] Multiple external Networks...
http://www.ISAserver.org
Okay, looking for input from you guys, on our favorite topic, multiple
external Networks!
(I can hear Jim groaning already...)
The specifics:
ISA 2004 (SE)
Windows 2003 Server (SE)
1 external 1.5Mbps Network (NIC) connected to main ISP
1 external 4.5Mbps Network (NIC) connected to secondary ISP
Each ISP has a separate domain name, and I can use either one to access
the ISA server from the outside, works great.
The problems:
1. In the current configuration, ALL outbound traffic is routed
through our main ISP, leaving the other one pretty much idle. Basically,
we're wasting money on this connection.
2. Due to a contract signed before I arrived, we're stuck with paying
for this secondary ISP connection until the contract runs out in 2007.
3. Although this secondary ISP is a 4.5Mbps connection (this summer
it will be bumped to 7.5Mbps), it is shared by many other schools in the
general area, and it turns out that our 1.5Mbps connection has a much
better response rate.
4. I attempted to redirect subnets to use the secondary ISP through
the ROUTE command, but found that only works with outbound connections.
For example, I cannot redirect all outbound requests to CNN's website
using a broad subnet, and still have anyone else on the 64.x.x.x subnet
to be able to reach us on inbound connections. Thus, I'd have to
specify specific IP addresses to be routed to do a manual version of
load balancing, instead of an entire subnet. This is doable, but is a
very tedious process.
5. About the only thing I can use this secondary ISP for right now is
as a fail-over device. But even then I'd have to go in and make all the
changes to redirect traffic through the other NIC by hand, not practical
for short-term outages.
Then enters RainConnect. I've looked at this program a bit, but find
the information on it a bit confusing. Supposedly it will do what I
need, which is load-balancing between multiple ISPs. However, the
descriptions of how it works shows a single NIC, with multiple virtual
IPs connected to a switch, that is connected to the multiple ISPs. If
this is the case, I have a $69 hardware device sitting here that does
pretty much the same thing but for far less than the cost of RainConnect
(especially since it was donated).
My question is: Has anyone actually used RainConnect, how does it work,
and how well does it work?
I think the cost of the program isn't as big of an issue as the fact
that we have a cheap device sitting here that will essentially do the
same thing, albeit not as gracefully.
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