Load balance between 2 CIPs on same router

[jrmoraes77]

7513 with 2 CIP2s in a following schema:

CIP 1(port A) - connected to a active mainframe

CIP 1(port B) - connected to a standby mainframe

CIP 2(port A) - connected to a active mainframe

CIP 2(port B) - connected to a standby mainframe

Is possible use 2 ports on diferent cards at same time to balance and fault tolerance ? If yes, is possible use more than one ethernet interface to do this ?

If not, how this cenario can work in terms of load balance and fault tolerance ?

Thank's in advance.

[rsissons]

You can use the same mac address on different CIP cards (or even ports) for fault tolerance and load balancing. Both CIPs will receive and respond to explorer traffic and the session will be established with the first to respond.

This will work in a token ring environment which supports duplicate mac addresses and multiple paths because of the presense of the RIF fields, however this is not supported in transparant bridging environments like ethernet where the end devices cannot handle seeing multiple responses to the explorer.

Cisco brought out the DLSW Ethernet Redundancy feature to get around this problem so, depending on your topology, you may be able to use it. See the following URL for more information -

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios120/120newft/120t/120t5/ethredu.htm

[jrmoraes77]

There is no way to provide some load balance between 2 CIPs on same router and transparent bridge?

If I put one Ethernet interface for each CIP, is possible to do this ?

Exist any way to create a "virtual MAC" to respond to end devices. In this case each CIP has different MAC address.

I'm sorry if I ask for impossible solutions, but the customer will invest a lot o money in this solution and load balance and fault tolerance are critical.

Thank you.