Load Balancing with VRRP

Eildor

I wanted to do something like GLBP's round-robin load balancing, but I don't think this is possible with VRRP. What load balancing capabilities does VRRP have? It sounds like the only option you have is to create separate VRRP groups and have one serve a particular gateway and another VRRP group serve the other... which obviously involves having to plan out how you are going to assign gateways on host machines -- is this correct?

Thanks.

f0rgiv3n

Hi Eildor, that is 100% correct. VRRP is not a load balancing protocol it is for redundancy (virtual router redundancy protocol). Sure, you could create two VRRP groups for the same subnet, but like you said you'd be having to manually configure the gateways on the host machines. GLBP is the only one that is a "load balancing" protocol. Otherwise, it's mainly used for redundancy.


However! There is a catch to all this (of course there is, this is Cisco ). With the Nexus platform using HSRP and vPC(virtual port channels)... if you have two Nexi(?) participating in a vPC and have an HSRP group assigned, BOTH of the Nexi will respond to the virtulal IP address essentially making it a load balanced HSRP O_o

Eildor

For what reason would anyone use VRRP over GLBP, then? Other than VRRP being non-proprietary.

networker050184

Almost all networks have no reason to use backup and active paths at one time. Usually the only reason it's done is because people seem to be bothered by idle links! Having a single active gateway greatly reduces troubleshooting.