I've been following the threads on cable/dsl and this topic seems to creep up every once in a while and disappear. At this point, I still have cable as a primary connection and dsl as a backup, but switch over manually when cable goes down (switch the network cable from cable modem to dsl modem). I'm still looking for a better solution to this that actually works. I've read about the nexland and hawking routers but both seem to have problems that make them no better than the manual switching method. Has anyone tried using 2 nic cards, one to each isp? Is this possible & what would it take to make it work?
easy route unless you want to get dual peered T1s into your house is just put a PC on each line. or use 1 nic with 2 gateways - with primary gateway having lower metric - in the event of failure of one just go into TCP/IP settings change the gateway metric to put standby as lower than primary and then disable/enable the nic. your now on the other gateway - assumes windows 2000 or XP pro. without a peering group your going to lose your connections to broker/quotes example network - mine actually linux firewall internal ip 10.1.0.100 plugged into lan side of linksys linksys 8 port with internal ip 10.1.0.200 i have my PCs set to gateway of .200 switch to .100 to go out linux firewall using 8 port switch side of linksys for interenal network backbone.
I don't want to got the 2 pc route because I have 6 monitors hooked up to my main trading pc. The space required to replicate that setup is prohibitive. I do have a backup pc for emergency purposes but I've never had to use it. I have cable and/or dsl failures approximately once a month though. The rest of what you say goes over my head. What I would like to do is plug some cables in & have the router or software do their respective jobs. I can handle changing some settings, but if I have to do it manually when there is a failure, then it's really not much better than what I currently do (switching cables).
I bought and installed the Nexland router about 2 weeks ago. I use cable as primary ISP and DSL as backup. It is working great for me. I bought the router for $360 and I think it is worth it.
hehe come on 6 more monitors should give you a nice tan. basically without a peering arrangement - this is where you have 2 connections that have the same virtual external IP - when it switches over you should lose your login to quotes/broker. since w2k doesnt support failover of gateways - you either need to disable/enable the NIC with new gateway or reboot or switch cables. im guessing nexland does switch but still loses broker/quote connection. disable/re-enable nic is fast and would be easier if your cable is not easily accessible. just right click on nic in network connections. goto tcp/ip - add 2nd gateway with metric higher than primary. when failure occurs - go into tcp/ip change metric of secondary gateway to be lower than primary. close properties. right click nic and disable then right click nic and enable. if you have 2 nics disable the 2nd nic (with gateway & ip info for 2nd connection). when failure occurs disable 1st nic and enable 2nd nic. relogin to qoutes/broker peering group only answer to complete failover with out you having to do anything. but very expensive/month. a Standard T1 from a Top Tier ISP should have more uptime/lower latency than dsl or cable and consistent bandwidth.
Just to clarify, the peering arrangement is something that is setup at the ISP level- its an administrative option the ISP makes available for commercial customers. Basically, both ISPs route to the same IP (you) while each ISP knows that only one will be used a a time. I guess each ISP would have to know that it is in a peering arrangement and would have to know what the other ISP is? The gateway failover is something setup at the OS and local network level? Is that correct?
yes - peering is done at the ISP level - you usually go with different ISPs for additional redundancy and they have know about it to setup on their end on the gateway - basically NT/windows doesnt support failing over the gateway in its own IP settings. you can put more than 1 but it just checks when you boot up for a live gateway. after that you have to reboot or disable/re-enable the NIC to change gateways. i believe the way Nexland works is it just watches both ISP connections and provides the internal network with 1 gateway. that way when failover happens you dont do anything on your PC. but since your connected to your broker thru IP@ISP1 and then suddenly next packet (after failure) is IP@ISP2 you usually have to relogin. browsing the web doesnt matter since your not authenticated. ive only delt with peering - 2 cisco routers, 2 cisco pix firewalls - expensive setup for your house. figure since i dont know trading that much i can contribute on the hardware questions.
If I want to use the gateway option, isn't there some kind of software available that'll automatically switch over & release/renew your ip?
Gateway and peering is not done at the same time. With peering you have one DSL line coming into one gateway and the two ISPs have a peering arrangement. With a gateway, you'd have two DSL lines or DSL and a cable line both attached to a failover gateway type of thingy. With a gateway solution you'd have 2 ISPs, 2 IP addresses, maybe 2 network cards. Is that basically it?
1. peering is 2 connection lines or more in - on your side you should have redundant hardware - but your internal network only has 1 default gateway. the internal network does not see the failover & the external IP does not change. 2. if you do the poor mans 'peering' all you have is a device that connects 2 lines in to 1 default gateway. your internal network doesnt know it failed over and continues using same default gateway. but your external ip changes. nexland should do this. 3. or if you the extra poor man thing. you have 2 connections and 2 default gateways. your internal network PCs are responsible for changing which default gateway to use. your internal default gateway and external ip change in a failover. you then have a couple options to do the default gateway failover - 3.1. have both internet connections have the same internal network IP (so same default gateway on PCs) and just switch cables to active one 3.2. have both internet connections with same internal network but different default gateways - on failover change default gateway in TCP/IP and disable/re-enable card for settings to work - possibly some software that could do this automatically for you. 3.3. have 2 Nics - each with different internal networks, each internet connection is setup with different internal networks, you must keep 1 card disabled. after a failure disable the active card and enable the previous inactive one.