topic Re: ECMP and circuit load in General Topics

ECMP and circuit load

ldavie — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 19:06:52 GMT

I have not been able to find an answer to this in the searching I have done. Does ECMP take into account the current load on the paths before choosing a path? We are using 'balanced round robin' on our metro-e links between locations, we have two providers with identical bandwidth at each location. My question is this: lets say a backup session starts from location A to B, and it is placed on path "2", and that session uses 80% of the bandwidth. Path "1" is only at 10% utilization, and the next session is placed on path "1" because of round robin. Now the 3rd session starts and is placed on path "2" again, and let say that utilization is now at 99% on path 2 and path one is at 20%. Will path 2 continue to take every other session or does the algorithm realize that path "1" is underutilized and favor that path?

Re: ECMP and circuit load

rmonvon — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 19:27:46 GMT

Hi...Load sharing of ECMP on the Palo Alto currently does not take into account real-time bandwidth use. Using 'balanced round robin' will distribute equal session between ECMP paths and path 2 will continue to take every other session. Thanks.

Re: ECMP and circuit load

ldavie — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 16:37:23 GMT

Thank you for the responce. I'm going to submit a feature request.