dual data center 5 remote offices

[k.langley]

I have a project that requires 2 data centers, one for a hot standby. I have 5 remote offices that need to connect to data center 1. In the event data center 1 goes down then I need the 5 remote sites to connect to data center 2.

All 5 remote offices as well as the DATA centers will have 5525x ASA's behind the boundry routers. The boundry routers will have IP/ACL and stateful packet filtering. the internal FW will be packet inspection

Both data centers will have  2 seperate internet connections plus a replication link out the back between them.

I wanted to use a multisite MPLS GRE tunnel which would originate from each remote office. In the event a remote office couldn't get to a data center then it would attempt to connect to the other data center. Question to follow........

The 2 data centers would replicate over the back channel so they wouldn't require connectivity to each other out the front.

I will eventually add dual front end routers so HSRP will be running locally

Questions:

1. Is this the best design to go with? concerned the 5 tunnels over a ds3 would be to much, unless I can load balance

2. What is the mechanism that allows MPLS GRE tunnels to load balance and create failover.

3. Has someone seen a white paper or diagram that supports this?

4. Am I missing somthing I should be considering?

[Lei Tian]

Hi,

Does DMVPN or something similar meet all requirements? You can have dual hub dual DMVPN to get active/stanby, and encryp traffic go through internet. What's the business case of running MPLS here?

Sorry about not answering your questions directly; just want to get clear on the use case. You can take a look the following link for MPLSoGRE

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/WAN_and_MAN/ngwanearch.html#wp1000241

HTH,

Lei Tian

[k.langley]

Business case for MPLS is voice ,T-1 and fault tolerance. I also need to prioritize traffic. I some traffic that is critical to receive at all times. I considered dual DMVPN just wasn't sure I could prioritize it correctly

[Lei Tian]

You can apply QoS for DMVPN; you can prioritize voice traffic, and you can do per-tunnel QoS with DMVPN. However, you will lose control of the packets once packet gets in the internet, regardless the solution you are using.

HTH,

Lei Tian