The article is devoted to researching reliability and fault tolerance management mechanisms in infocommunication networks, focusing on modeling and testing of gateway redundancy protocols. The work considers the VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) and GLBP (Gateway Load Balancing Protocol) protocols, which ensure continuous network operation in the event of a primary gateway failure. The purpose of the study is to compare these protocols using the virtual environments EVE-NG and Containerlab, as well as to test them on physical and virtual devices. The article analyzes the characteristics and mechanisms of both protocols, the software implementation, and the configuration of the protocols on Cisco devices in emulation environments and tests their effectiveness in the face of gateway failures. The results showed that VRRP provides minimal packet loss and fast switching between master and backup gateways, making it optimal for networks with high requirements for connection continuity. Instead, GLBP provides load balancing between gateways but is accompanied by higher packet loss and longer switching times, which limits its use in critical networks. In particular, testing in virtual environments has shown that when using virtualized links and resources, VRRP delays and packet loss are significantly lower than GLBP. Therefore, testing in virtual environments is useful for preliminary analysis of configurations, although testing on real devices is necessary to determine the protocols' effectiveness accurately. We also consider the possibilities of using GLBP in large networks to provide not only redundancy but also optimize traffic balancing. Based on the results obtained, we formulate suggestions for future research, including optimizing switching times between gateways and developing hybrid solutions that combine the advantages of both protocols, VRRP and GLBP, to improve traffic management and redundancy and create more flexible and fault-tolerant infrastructures.
[1] Лемешко, О.В., Єременко, О.С., Невзорова, О.С. (2020), Потокові моделі та методи маршрутизації в інфокомунікаційних мережах: відмовостійкість, безпека, масштабованість. Харків: ХНУРЕ, 308 с.
doi: https://doi.org/10.30837/978-966-659-282-1
[2] Лемешко, О.В., Єременко, О.С., Євдокименко, М.О., Шаповалова, А.С., Слейман, Б. (2022), Моделювання та оптимізація процесів безпечної та відмовостійкої маршрутизації в телекомунікаційних мережах : монографія. М-во освіти і науки України, Харків. нац. ун-т радіоелектроніки. Харків : ХНУРЕ, 198 с. doi: https://doi.org/10.30837/978-966-659-378-1
[3] Carthern, C., Wilson, W., Bedwell, R., Rivera, N. (2015), “Introduction to Availability”, In: Cisco Networks. Apress, Berkeley, CA, pp. 383–406. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0859-5_13
[4] Cisco Systems (2023), “Understand the Hot Standby Router Protocol Features and Functionality”, available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/ip/hot-standby-router-protocol-hsrp/9234-hsrpguidetoc.html
[5] Cisco Systems, “Gateway Load Balancing Protocol Configuration Guide”, available at: https://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_2t/12_2t15/feature/guide/ft_glbp.html
[6] Hinden, R., and Deering, S. 2010. Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). RFC 5798, available at: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5798
[7] Lemeshko, O., Mersni, A., Yeremenko, O., Omowumi, S., Volotka, V., and Al-Dulaimi, A. (2021), “Application Prospects of First Hop Redundancy Protocols for Fault-Tolerant SDN Controllers: A Survey”, 2021 IEEE 8th International Conference on Problems of Infocommunications, Science and Technology (PIC S&T), pp. 416-420. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/picst54195.2021.9772141
[8] Єременко, О.С., Мерсні, А. (2020), “Підвищення відмовостійкості елементів сучасних інфокомунікаційних мереж із застосуванням протоколів резервування шлюзу за замовчуванням”, Проблеми телекомунікацій, №2(27), pp.68-81. doi: https://doi.org/10.30837/pt.2020.2.06
[9] Єременко, О.С., Євдокименко, М.О. (2018), “Огляд теоретичних рішень щодо відмовостійкої маршрутизації в телекомунікаційних мережах”, Проблеми телекомунікацій, №1(22), pp.25-42. doi: https://doi.org/10.30837/pt.2018.1.02
[10] Saud, N., and Mansour, M. (2023), “Performance Evaluation of First Hop Redundancy Protocols in IPv4 and IPv6 Networks”, 2023 IEEE 3rd International Maghreb Meeting of the Conference on Sciences and Techniques of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering (MI-STA), pp. 440-445. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/MI-STA57575.2023.10169462
[11] Wibowo, F., Yulianto, F., and Nuha, H. (2023), “Performance Comparison Analysis of Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) with Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) on a DMVPN Network”, 2023 11th International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT), pp. 499-504. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICoICT58202.2023.10262804
[12] Julia, I., Suseno, H., Wardhani, L., Khairani, D., Hulliyah, K., and Muharram, A. (2020), “Performance Evaluation of First Hop Redundancy Protocol (FHRP) on VRRP, HSRP, GLBP with Routing Protocol BGP and EIGRP”, 2020 8th International Conference on Cyber and IT Service Management (CITSM), pp. 1-5. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/CITSM50537.2020.9268799
[13] Hamied, M. (2022), “Gateway Redundancy Protocols in the Smart Grid”, 2022 2nd International Conference on Computing and Information Technology (ICCIT), pp. 186-190. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCIT52419.2022.9711652
[14] Harahus, M., Cavojský, M., Bugár, G., & Pleva, M., 2023. Interactive Network Learning: An Assessment of EVE-NG Platform in Educational Settings. Acta Electrotechnica et Informatica, 23, pp. 3-9. doi: https://doi.org/10.2478/aei-2023-0011
[15] Packetswitch (2024), “Containerlab - Creating Network Labs Can't Be Any Easier”, available at: https://www.packetswitch.co.uk/containerlabs-intro/
[16] Ansible Community Documentation (2025), “Ansible for Network Automation”, available at: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/network/index.html
[17] MikroTik Documentation (2025), available at: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/Main_Page
[18] Containerlab (2025), available at: https://containerlab.dev/
[19] Savchenko, R. (2025), “Containerlab configs”. Zenodo. doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14916309
[20] Lemeshko, O., Yeremenko, O., Mersni, A., Yevdokymenko, M., Persikov, M., and Kruhlova, A. (2023), “Analysis of Proactive Models of Fault-Tolerant Routing under Load Balancing and Border Routers Availability” 2023 17th International Conference on the Experience of Designing and Application of CAD Systems (CADSM), 1, pp. 28-31. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/CADSM58174.2023.10076525