RE: Balancing vs sharing

From: Kenneth Wygand (KWygand@customonline.com)
Date: Tue May 25 2004 - 19:36:51 GMT-3


Richard,
 
As I understand it, load "balancing" is a theoretical best-case. This implies that no matter how much utilization is required amongst a set of circuits, the load will always be the same (balanced) amongst all circuits.
 
I don't know of any implementation that load balances per se. Cisco uses the term load "sharing" to indicate that multiple circuits are being used to distribute loads across the circuits to some extent, with the ultimate best-case being 50.00000% one way and 50.00000% the other (in the case of two circuits).
 
GLBP, like most other load sharing mechanisms, will never achieve this level of karma. Consequently, we try to load-share as best as possible through practical implementations.
 
P.S. I remember reading an article somewhere that stated if you are using two ISPs for an Internet connection and _not_ running BGP (purely running destination-based load-sharing through equal cost static routes or policy-routing based on source address or other criteria), statistically (over time) getting 75% utilization over one circuit and getting 25% utilization over the other circuit (assuming they are the same bandwidth) is considered great!
 
HTH,
Ken

        -----Original Message-----
        From: nobody@groupstudy.com on behalf of Richard Dumoulin
        Sent: Tue 5/25/2004 5:57 PM
        To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
        Cc:
        Subject: Balancing vs sharing
        
        

        Strangely (at least to me), although it is called balancing protocol, in the
        text they only talk about load sharing the traffic,
        http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/122newft/122
        t/122t15/ft_glbp.htm
        <http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/122newft/12
        2t/122t15/ft_glbp.htm> .
        
        I have never understood the difference between load sharing and load
        balancing !?!? Is the second term a particular case of the first one ?
        
        --Richard
        
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