Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Broadband Technology => Topic started by: Ammit on April 22, 2008, 09:21:34 AM
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I haven't seen anything on the forum to do with this and I recently became aware that this was possible.
It doesn't seem that there are any "off the shelf" solutions when it comes to ADSL bonding. Does anyone here know how to do this and what's involved.
I'm not thinking of a DIY project here, it seems to me that this technology is for people who know what they are doing only and it's something that can be easily messed up.
If anyone can give me any pro's (other than faster speed obviously) or cons to this it would be much appreciated. Thought there should be a post about it so that we can all put things in.
:)
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There's a pretty good summary from one individual's experiences with bonded ADSL here (http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Internet/ADSL-Bonding-How-To-and-Review.html).
Main pro is the increased upload and download capacity, cons are the cost and the potential technical hurdles you may encounter configuring such a service.
SDSL (whilst also costly) involves much less configuring etc.
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Many thanks for the article. I have read that actually and it was very useful for me.
I know that SDSL would be a much less hassle ridden way of doing it....however.....its' not me who wants to do it - it's the company I work for.
I suppose it's a challenge but seeing as the resources for doing it - ie - the equipment is not freely available am I thinking this is because it's a really specialist job that requires a lot of knowledge or is it just the cost that is the problem.
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Another alternative to perhaps look at could be load balancing (http://kb.linuxvirtualserver.org/wiki/DSL_Load_Balancing) the adsl lines... particularly if its for an office with several PCs.
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Yeah I think we're looking at that as well. *goes to research*
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Isn't bonding about to become a supported option on IPStream? I'm sure I read something recently about this.
/me rummages
Edit - thought so : http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3327-new-bonding-software-to-allow-higher-speeds-over-broadband.html
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Hi Ammit,
I was bonding 2 lines with MLPPP up until last month. The obvious advantage for me was the increased speeds (especially upload) as I host my own website and email servers ect...
The main downside is the setup cost. The reason for this is that you either have to purchase Cisco gear which costs lots of money or you have to use linux to bond the lines together into a Wan Pipe. There is also a limited number of modems you can use due to lack of support for linux so if your line does not like either the Sangoma cards or the Speedtouch 330 you are virtually out of luck.
If you want more info on MLPPP check out http://www.upstreaminter.net/fm (http://www.upstreaminter.net/fm). There is loads of info in that forum about it, including peoples troubles and successes with it.
Pros:
- Speed of both lines together
- ISP's are usually small so you are going to get very good support and speeds
Cons:
- Must be supported at the ISP's end
- Expensive to setup
- Can get quite technical
- Very few ISP's support it
Now onto load balancing.
I setup my loadbalancer two weeks ago using a custom version of freebsd called PfSense(http://www.pfsense.com (http://www.pfsense.com)) after I gave in with my own linux based loadbalancer(it kind of blew up in my face :lol:). It takes about 30 mins to have it all setup 100% and it is very stable. It is easy to configure as it has a web GUI and there is extensive documentation.
Pros:
- Redundancy if you are using with multiple ISP's
- Works with any ISP
- Free to setup
- Speed of both lines(When using multi-threaded site/services)
Cons:
- You only get the speed of both lines when using multi-threaded services.
- ISP's defiantly won't provide support for setting it up ect...
Hope that gives you an idea as to how it all works ect....
My opinion is that i prefere MLPPP because there is no messing about with DL managers.
James
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James thanks so much
That is brilliant and really helpful. I like the sound of load balancing due to free setup and if no ISP's do support it then we could be an exception to the rule!
I think that bonding sounds expensive but I will have a look at your links and weigh it up a bit more.
I really appreciate your response along with everyone elses - this forum is brilliant.
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There is a company called Vaioni (http://www.vaioni.com) that we used for a while to get a bonded connection. They will bond as many lines as you want, but you pay for the privilege, they are very very expensive!!
They are aimed at businesses who want something robust, and don't want to pay for a leased line, and for redundancy they use multiple ISPs. The good thing is that the Linux box at your end (which is your gateway) and whatever's at the ISP end performs per-packet load balancing, so even a single stream can max out the bonded lines.
But like I say, they are expensive
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Isn't bonding about to become a supported option on IPStream?
Not quite, BT Wholesale are selling the Sharedband product through their e-Catalogue, it isn't offered as a service or supported although that might change.
I'm testing Sharedband currently on a pair of Netgear routers at my end and a hosted Linux server at the other end. The two lines are from different ISPs.