Which router model needed for failover, load balancing?

[hantzgroup]

I currently have a 1600 router for Internet connectivity.

My company is considering another T1 from a different carrier, as a backup in case the primary T1 goes down.

If I wish to provide load balancing and especially an alternative failover route for traffic should my primary line go down (e.g. a line cut), what model would I need to upgrade to?

I'm assuming a 2600 or so, but would I need any special modules or IOS versions to accomplish this?

Thanks

[Erick Bergquist]

Hi,

This can be achieved in a few ways. Are you going to using BGP at all with these carriers or just going to use static routes?

Also, you can load balance outbound traffic but it is harder to control inbound internet traffic unless you use BGP and work with the carriers.

If you are using static routes, then one way would be to get another 1600 router and run multi-group HSRP on the LAN interfaces. Half the devices on the LAN would use one HSRP group IP as their default gateway and other half of users would use the other group. One group would be active on one router and the group active on the other router. You would configure HSRP on both to track the WAN interface so the HSRP priority is adjusted and the other router becomes active when the WAN interface fails. This would allow the users / end devices to use both routers to send traffic out to the internet.

Erick