2 ISPS 2 Routers 2 Printers

[totalmajor]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to streamline the office connection because I don't think the person before me knew what they were doing (To be fair, I don't think I fully understand it either).

Currently. we have:
2 3600HGV's from ATT for internet
ASUS RT-N66R Router
WRT 160N v3
D Link DGS 1024D Switch


KM Bizhub c360 Printer
Laserjet P2035n

I have the 66R running as an access point for one of the 3600HGV's and the WRT 160N v3 for the other. Ideally I would like to get both routers talking to each other so I can share the printers over the network no matter what network you connect to. (IDEALLY - Having one network show up would work best but unless I can get rid of the DGS 1024D I won't be able to buy a dual wan router).

I found this post from earlier:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/42616-42-isps-routers-printer

Is this the proper way of setting it up? Is there an alternative? How exactly would I go about doing this for a noob? Sorry for all the questions, there's just some urgency to get this up and running!

Thanks!

 

[bill001g]

The other post is a common way to do this when you do not want to buy more equipment. You hook everything together on the lan side and you the tech need to configure the PC to select which ISP router to use.

The other option is to still hook everything except the ISP routers together in one big lan. You then plug that into a dual ISP router. The dual ISP router would then hook to each ATT router and via software decide which user uses which ISP.

Be aware even the dual wan routers do not do a very good job of load balancing between the connection. They really were designed for a primary and backup configuration not running both at the same time...although you can run it that way.

Not sure why you would want to get rid of the 24 port switch. I would use that as the common connection point for all the devices on the lan.

 

[totalmajor]

The reason I figured I could get rid of that switch is because we only have 5 or 6 wired computers left. Everything else is wireless. I could eliminate that switch and maybe get something better like that dual wan switch or something. I could then plug in those desktops into one of the routers.

So do you think that method will be sufficient enough for what I'm trying to do? Is there a name for it so I can try googling some more helpful articles or something along those lines?

Thanks!
Peter

 

[totalmajor]

I've also noticed that the DGS 1024D unmanaged router is a layer 2 switch. I have no idea if that makes any difference but can I possibly use that as a DUAL WAN router?

Right now I have one gateway connected to it but does that automatically assign itself as a WAN port then?

 

[bill001g]

The design to place 2 routers in the same lan and control the path by changing the gateway in the pc is a very non standard way to do things.

It is only proposed because it is simple in someways and you don't have to buy a special router that can run multiple wan ISP.

That switch is very fast but very stupid device. It will in not cause you any issues, just think of it as a big cable splice.

There is no clear google on that, you will see it discussed on forums like this on dual ISP but the solution is more a understanding of what "default gateway" means.