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Redundant Internet Access?

Posted by Cliff on from the are-you-getting-what-you-paid-for dept.

Supp0rtLinux asks: "In order to meet uptime requirements and SLAs, we decided to get redundant T1's with BGP. We already had two Cisco 7200 routers and a T1. After the ISP turned up the additional circuit and we tested everything on our end, all seemed fine. But when the CO lost power and the generator failed, we had no access for 16+ hours. This prompted some investigations which revealed that yes, we did in fact have a redundant T1 with BGP setup and local redundant routers with separate UPS... on our side. However, on their side both our feeds were plugged into the *same* switch which was on the same PDU which happened to be in the same CO and was on the same sonet. And they were charging us for redundancy! Six month later, we have a truly redundant BGP setup. Each feed goes to separate CO's with the primary to the local one. This makes for separate physical switches, separate power, and we have confirmed we're on physically separate sonets. Now, the only true single point of failure is the physical cabling in the street, but in CA that doesn't get damaged very often. To those of you on Slashdot who know what I'm talking about: are your circuits truly redundant? What have your experiences in network redundancy been? How have you gotten past the sales guy to a tech that knows what redundancy really means? Have you been able to prove your redundancy? Have you found yourself paying for something that you weren't really getting?"

3 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Not there yet by perlchild · · Score: 5, Informative

    I haven't put the "on" to our redundancy just yet, but I can assure you one thing. When I do, two different companies will be providing the circuits.

    Having them in two COs, redundant everything, yet linked to the same AS(when it isn't mine) makes me nervous.

  2. On a Wing and a Prayer by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Funny

    To those of you on Slashdot who know what I'm talking about: are your circuits truly redundant? What have your experiences in network redundancy been?

    I have two homing pigeons.

    If Cupid smiles on them, soon I'll have even more redundancy.

    --
    Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
  3. 2 to the same provider is not redundant by ZESTA · · Score: 5, Informative

    Having "redundant" circuits to the same provider is pretty useless. You really need to be connected to two completely separate upstream providers for decent redundancy. If you have mission-critical needs, you want 3.

    -Randy