IP Anycasting In-Depth

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.

Some background on IP Anycast:

Advantages:

• IP routing will deliver packets over the shortest path to the nearest host

• Client needs to be configured with only a single Anycast host address
• Upon failure, routing will forward to the next nearest server with the same Anycast address
• Distributed Anycast servers will effectively “load balance” traffic

Addressing

• Works with IPv4 and IPv6

Routing

• Works with standard IP routing protocols

• Changes in network topology (configuration) will automatically change to the nearest Anycast server
• Route Summarization may increase Route Table size
• IPv6 use can add QoS-Quality of Service (policy-based) routing

IP Anycast is defined, by Cisco, as the point-to-point flow of IP [Internet Protocol] packets between a single client and the “nearest” destination server identified by any IP Anycast address. Criteria for selecting “nearest” server determines the type of anycast content. Also referred to a Virtual IP address with mirrored (duplicated or load-balanced disk) servers sharing same IP address. That is, the DNS [Domain Name Server] maps (identifies) unique IP address which then distributes content to local or remote content servers.

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[tags]cisco,router,techtionary,ipv4,anycast,load balance,ipv6[/tags]