GLBP

 Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) is a Cisco proprietary protocol designed to

overcome the limitations of existing redundant router protocols.
 Instead of having just one active router performing forwarding for the virtual router
address, all routers in the group can participate and offer load balancing by forwarding a
portion of the overall traffic.
 The load balancing is provided completely through the use of virtual router MAC
addresses in ARP replies returned to the clients.
 GLBP supports a maximum of 4 members for a group

GLBP Members:

1. Active Virtual Gateway (AVG)

 Assigns virtual MAC addresses to the members
 Answer to all the ARP Request
 AVG is elected bas on Highest Priority or Highest IP address
 AVG can assign only a maximum of 4 MAC addresses.

2. Active Virtual Forwarder (AVF)

o Each Router in GLBP Group has AVF
o Forwards data for the traffic destined to the virtual MAC address.

GLBP Load Balancing:

1- Round robin: Each new ARP request for the virtual router address receives the next
available virtual MAC address in reply. Traffic load is distributed evenly across all routers
participating as AVFs in the group, assuming that each of the clients sends and receives
the same amount of traffic. This is the default method used by GLBP.

2- Weighted: The GLBP group interface’s weighting value determines the proportion of
traffic that should be sent to that AVF. A higher weighting results in more frequent ARP
replies containing the virtual MAC address of that router. If interface tracking is not
configured, the maximum weighting value configured is used to set the relative
proportions among AVFs.

3- Host dependent: Each client that generates an ARP request for the virtual router
address always receives the same virtual MAC address in reply. This method is used if
the clients have a need for a consistent gateway MAC address. (Otherwise, a client
could receive replies with different MAC addresses for the router over time, depending
on the load-balancing method in use.)
GLBP Configurations:
GLBP Example: