Static Route Metric

---

Hi All,

At about 16 minutes of "Dons Special" episode prior to the OSPF episode in CCNET, he mentioned that a static route connected to 2 routers with the same metric would result in a "tie". Thus, the router would then load balance. How exactly is this done by the router? By session? By packet? How exactly does the load balancing mechanism work?

Thank You,

Matt M.----

Matt,
Thanks for the question! The cisco routers can load-balance in one of two ways: on a per-packet basis or a per-destination basis.
We can configure it to do it per destination, this means that all packets heading to destination 171.251.10.49 will send all packets along a single path; then packets heading to 204.251.77.66 will be sent to another path to it's destination. This insures all packets going to a destination will arrive in the sequence sent. Only if there is congestion towards the orginal destination will the second path be used.
We can also configure it to use per packet load-balancing. This serially destributes each packet among all the equal cost routes to the destination. This insures that data is equally distributed across equal-cost paths.
The way the router handles it depends on how the switching for the IP proccess is handled by the router itself.
here is a fuller explanation from Cisco site:
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/ip/border-gateway-protocol-bgp/5212-46.html
Cordially,
Ronnie Wong
Host, ITProTV

Thanks Ronnie!
Ill look into the link you posted and reply to this thread if I have any follow-up questions.
Thanks Again!
Matt----