Yes, BGP must be supported by the upstream ISP in order to work. I'm an engineer at FatPipe Networks and we sell a Linux-based appliance that provides redundancy and load balancing without the use of BGP. And yes, we do it using DNS, but our box is intelligent in that it will detect line failures and change the way it answers DNS. The DNS runs on our box (we're running BIND).
I don't know of any device that can make BGP work better. All the BGP programmers I've talked to have said there is no way to load balance BGP lines without constantly manipulating AS number information.
austad is correct in everything he said. I don't see any reason to use BGP with only one provider. It would be much better to bond the lines. But to solve the problem where you only have one CO, you probably need to talk to the telco(s) and see if they can provide redundancy at that level. If you do use different ISPs (preferably with different backbones), then you would need to use BGP or some other multi-WAN solution.
Just so you guys know my background, I've worked at FatPipe Networks for three years now as a network engineer. They make Linux-based appliances that provide load balancing and redundancy without the use of BGP. Sometimes BGP is the right solution, but when you can't afford it or can't get your ISPs to cooperate, then you must find another solution.
As someone mentioned earlier, you can do things with DNS to get redundancy and that's what we use to get around having to do BGP. The downside with DNS as a solution is that you don't get redundancy at the IP level, but the upside is you get better inbound load balancing (as anyone who has ever worked with BGP knows all too well).
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Yes, BGP must be supported by the upstream ISP in order to work. I'm an engineer at FatPipe Networks and we sell a Linux-based appliance that provides redundancy and load balancing without the use of BGP. And yes, we do it using DNS, but our box is intelligent in that it will detect line failures and change the way it answers DNS. The DNS runs on our box (we're running BIND).
I don't know of any device that can make BGP work better. All the BGP programmers I've talked to have said there is no way to load balance BGP lines without constantly manipulating AS number information.
austad is correct in everything he said. I don't see any reason to use BGP with only one provider. It would be much better to bond the lines. But to solve the problem where you only have one CO, you probably need to talk to the telco(s) and see if they can provide redundancy at that level. If you do use different ISPs (preferably with different backbones), then you would need to use BGP or some other multi-WAN solution.
Just so you guys know my background, I've worked at FatPipe Networks for three years now as a network engineer. They make Linux-based appliances that provide load balancing and redundancy without the use of BGP. Sometimes BGP is the right solution, but when you can't afford it or can't get your ISPs to cooperate, then you must find another solution.
As someone mentioned earlier, you can do things with DNS to get redundancy and that's what we use to get around having to do BGP. The downside with DNS as a solution is that you don't get redundancy at the IP level, but the upside is you get better inbound load balancing (as anyone who has ever worked with BGP knows all too well).