switch 4500 with RIP and load balance

[agecom]

How configure 4500 with two routes to other 4500? I have configure the RIP but only one route is in routing-table. The other route only appears if one fails. The costs are the same. I need load balance.

[Fred_Mancen_1]

Did you entered both networks under RIP settings on bot switches?



regards

[agecom]

Yes. I tested with two static routes too but load balance don't work.

[Fred_Mancen_1]

The 4500 switches doesn't perform load balance in Layer 3...I didn't notice that you wants load balance...sorry.



If two 4500 are connected, and these switches have IP interfaces created in it, just one of the routes will work at one time, regarding its lowest interface ID. Even if you setup the metric as the same in both routes, only one will appear on the routing table.



Actually, there is no reason to use Layer 3 load balance between two 4500 switches; if the topology has three switches, so it would start to make sense. Do you have only one physical path connecting these switches? If yes, the chosen route will be the PVID of the connection. If you have two physical paths, why not use link-aggregation feature?



Please, clarify us about your topology and your needs.



Regards.

This message was edited by Fred_Mancen on 10-8-09 @ 2:47 PM

[agecom]

I have two paths with radio links between buildings. Link-aggregation don't work because the radios, and I don't manage them. I think the only way is with layer 3.

Regards

[Fred_Mancen_1]

If you have different source and destination addresses you can optimize the routes; but if there's just one source address and one destination address, there's no way to do it. You can try to enable RIP on both switches and let the switch itself choose which path is better; this way provides you contingency, but not load balance.



RIP isn't much sophisticated as routing protocol, it's easy to use and implement, but does not have features like load balance. At other hand, using static routes will be the solution only if you have two source addresses and two destination addresses.



Regards.

This message was edited by Fred_Mancen on 10-21-09 @ 2:26 PM