If I plugged in 2 network cards and had DSL and cable...with Win2000, would that give me load balanced and back-up capable system? I wasn't sure if it wold be load-balanced or if I had to specifiy which service all the data would use (until one crashes). I use my main trading PC as the only PC using the network when Im working. and if the second PC on the network is ever used, it wouldn't be used that extensively...Further, that would be the maximum number of PC's on the network - 2. No other Pc's. Also, do you know how the switch-over would actually work? I mean, would I have to re-boot the sytem, click on some icons, change some DNS, gateway, subnet setting somewhere, etc etc when one of the services crash? Or would it be completely seamless and invisible?
Huh? Who said anything about running BGP over DSL? As I said, you need _T1_'s to do this, _AND_ you have to convince BOTH providers to send BGP over them, AND they have to have peering relations with each other - talking about BGP over DSL lines is a joke. Having two different routes is _NOT_ fine - there can only be one default route to the internet or to a given network. The correct way to do this is to setup a gateway that is running specialized software that knows how to do failover. The gateway will also be running DHCP and NAT, with the computers behind the gateway on a class C net. There is way to much hand waving going on here. This is no small task to get right. nitro
NYC, I have not looked at any of these solutions closely, as I would do it all on my own using Linux or preferably FreeBSD - I would not be surprised if you can get some kind of transparent failover of Internet connectivity, but I can assure you, for your purposes, there is no way in hell that you are going to get any speed improvements thru load balancing. As to the DSL, the fact that I have two DSL's is inferior than having DSL and Cable, as you state (and I did as well) it creates an EXTRA single point of failure (the reason I have two DSL's has nothing to do with trading - it is from leftover from a past life.) However, it is not the ONLY single point of failure. Your broker is the biggest single point of failure, even though he is likely to be redundant (I experience Internet downtime maybe twice a year - I experience broker problems once every 3 months.) Also, your computer's as a whole is a single point of failure, in particular, having only on NIC in your computer is a clear SPF. How about the disk drive, or the power supply, or even that stupid little battery that keeps the BIOS settings? nitro
NYC, Yes, that would work, but you would have to do the failover by "hand." (it is not hard to write a simple script to do heatbeat style pings and if we don't get a response, then change the default route to the Internet to the other working NIC. This assumes you are running Windows NT+ OS ) The questions you are asking are at the heart of networking and how routers work. nitro nitro
I have no freaking clue as to what you're talking about! I just want a internet backup..that's all! It shouldnt be that difficult to do! yes - there are many places which can fail...Im just trying to cover as many bases as possible. In 3 1/2 years of trading, I have not experienced my PC crashing in any fashion..but I did expereince the Road Runner going down last month which cost me big time. The firm itself was fine. It was my Road Runner. So this is what Im trying to protect myself against..and my firm might even pay for it. Further, if Im paying extra $50 a month anyway, I woudl LOVE to be able to increase my bandwidth as well...insetad of paying only as a backup system. Nitro..are you saying that this MidPoint software or even load balancing routers will in no way improve my overall performance????
NYC, The setup you have WILL allow you to have "Internet backup." All I am saying is that there are levels of transparency that are involved here. As I stated, I have two DSL lines. Although there is nothing automatic for me, if DSL line 1 goes down for whatever reason, at least I can go to the other DSL and log on into IB's TWS from there. The level of transaparency that you are looking for is condiserably more complex, and I believe that these systems _MAY_ do what they promise. The best way to check that hypotheses out is the old fashioned way - TRY IT! Just make sure they have some sort of return policy - I have seen this things on the market before and they do not live up to expectations. As to inproving your performance, I am CONSIDERABLY more pessimistic that these things can improve the performance of your Internet connection(s.) That is, I do not belive that these programs/harware tools will give you the sum of the speed of the Cable + the speed of the DSL, in fact, it may run slower than the fastest of the two! Forget about speed this way - if this stuff REALLY matters to you, get a PTP T1. Not only will the speed improve, but you will gain something far more precious - you will reduce the LATENCY of your connection. There are people so in need of reducing the latency of their systems that they have gone on to remove the TCP/IP stack altogether and use raw sockets to communicate with the "sever." This stuff is very complex. TELL ME WHY YOU NEED SPEED AND I WILL TELL YOU WHAT TO DO AND HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO DO IT. The way you are going about it is Ok, but it may not solve your problem - and that would be at least a time drag... nitro
I dont NEED the extra speed. All Im saying is...if Im going to pay extra $50 a month, I dont want to use it JUST for backup....Im saying, it would be nice to be able to somehow get better performance as well as have it as backup.