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What are the differences between BGP and Link Balancers?

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a routing protocol used to manage traffic with powerful functions, and it is used at the core of the Internet to send requests to their correct destinations by routing IP network segments. It originally targeted large enterprises and ISP providers. While this way of managing traffic is very capable, it has serious disadvantages for most organizations. The following table outlines BGP’s challenges and how Elfiq’s Link Balancers address them.

Item BGP Elfiq Link Balancers

Equipment costs

 To use BGP, the equipment must be BGP-capable and is traditionally more expensive in order to synchronize the 250 000+ Internet routes. Elfiq’s product family has an offering for everyone, from small businesses to data-center infrastructures.
ISP selection With BGP, ISP cooperation is required. Elfiq’s products can use any ISP link from any provider without ISP involvement. Our main recommendation is to use different providers with different technologies.
AS Number This is required in BGP deployment and must be purchased. No AS number is required.
Maximum number of ISP links Limited, by nature BGP is complex to configure so a larger number of links will end up adding complexity and the risk of human error? Elfiq’s LB-4000E appliance can handle up to 320 ISP links.
Knowledge BGP is a powerful yet complex solution, requiring experience and trained personnel to deploy, manage and maintain it. Any IT professional can deploy Elfiq’s products with the product documentation.
Failover time When an ISP link is not available, the failover process can take up to 30 minutes to propagate new routes. Failover happens in real-time with Elfiq’s Link Balancers, where each link is monitored independently.
Security BGP has known security flaws which may compromise a deployment and require maintenance. Vulnerabilities may cause non-delivery of traffic, misuse of network resources, network congestion or packet delays. Elfiq’s unique Layer-2 approach is the safest on the market. Since it has no assigned IP addresses on the WAN ports, it cannot be compromised by Internet-based attacks, making it a more sensible security choice and a more secure solution than other link balancers as well which have IP addresses on their WAN ports.
Ongoing costs A BGP-qualified expert must be retained, routes tested on a regular basis and time tests have to be planned on top of ISP agreements and product maintenance costs. Product maintenance costs are the only ongoing costs with Elfiq’s Link Balancers.