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[John Kizmo]

Good day,

We currently have a Layer 3 switch dlink brand (DGS-3620-28TC) in place in our network. We plan to add redundancy to it, as budget permits we can only buy a second hand Cisco router in our area. All my research points to VRRP solution (which i'm not yet familiar with) based on what I understand on the protocol one will act as backup(passive). My concern is will it be possible to set it up as active-active or load balancing scenario?

Thank you.

[PacketTracer]

Hi John,

I only know Cisco's HSRP, but there are good reasons to assume there are no crucial differences between HSRP and VRRP. You could create active-active the following way:

Calling your physical device DGS-3620-28TC "VRRP1" having IP address IP1 and naming the still to buy Cisco Router "VRRP2" having IP address IP2, you would define

• one "standby group" consisting of VRRP1 and VRRP2, and a "logical Router" having IP address IP3 and using VRRP1 as "active" and WRRP2 as "standby" router
• a second "standby group" also consisting of VRRP1 and VRRP2, and a second "logical Router" having IP address IP4 and using VRRP2 as "active" and WRRP1 as "standby" router (just the other way round)

Now half of your clients may be configured to use IP3 as their default gateway while the other half is configured to use IP4.

PT

[John Kizmo]

Thanks for the reply. I'm getting a little picture on what I need to do, I just have some question.

• one "standby group" consisting of VRRP1 and VRRP2, and a "logical Router" having IP address IP3 and using VRRP1 as "active" and WRRP2 as "standby" router
• a second "standby group" also consisting of VRRP1 and VRRP2, and a second "logical Router" having IP address IP4 and using VRRP2 as "active" and WRRP1 as "standby" router (just the other way round)

Where do I need to define this? On both device? and also on a particular interface?
What is WRRP1 and WRRP2 is that the group name?

Now half of your clients may be configured to use IP3 as their default gateway while the other half is configured to use IP4.

You mean I need to manually set this to DHCP server? Doesn't have some kind of auto load balancing?

Thank you very much.

[PacketTracer]

What is WRRP1 and WRRP2 is that the group name?

Sorry, was just a typo, it should say VRRP1 and VRRP2 instead! There is no name for a standby/VRRP group, you use a number (VRID) instead.

Where do I need to define this? On both device? and also on a particular interface?

Yes, on both devices and for the interfaces which connect both routers to the LAN or VLAN of interest.

You mean I need to manually set this to DHCP server? Doesn't have some kind of auto load balancing?

For optimal balancing you somehow have to configure one half of your clients in the corresponding LAN/VLAN to use IP3, and the other half to use IP4 as their default gateway. Most predictable is a manual configuration.

The solution described above corresponds to a situation where you only have a single LAN/VLAN, VRRP is configured for.

If you have several VLANs you could also achieve a loadbalancing by configuring only a single virtual/logical router and corresponding VRRP/standby group per VLAN. For half the virtual routers you would define VRRP1 to be active (called "Master" with VRRP) and VRRP2 to be standby, and for the other half you would define it the other way round. In this case all clients in a given VLAN use the same default gateway (the IP address of the single virtual/logical router defined for that VLAN).