[TriLUG] RAID notion applied to networking

[Alan Porter via TriLUG]

You can send your outbound traffic out two separate pipes.  But the 
problem is your INBOUND traffic.  The remote end needs a single IP 
address to send its response to.

For example, say you wanted to "curl" the latest Ubuntu install image.  
You would send a small request out one of your pipes and the entire ISO 
image would return through that same pipe, because that's the address 
that ubuntu.com saw the request coming from.  Using two pipes might only 
pay off if you wanted to download TWO ISO images, and you somehow 
controlled which one used which pipe.  But you're not actively managing 
traffic... you want to just "use them both as needed".

The two pipes might also help if you were uploading more than you were 
downloading.  The upload packets can take either path to get out to the 
destination.  But the replies will always come to the originating IP -- 
ONE of your two pipes.

If you wanted a way to mutliplex your outbound and inbound traffic over 
two links, you would need some sort of proxy on the internet that would 
act as your internet-facing IP address.  It would split your download 
traffic into two and it would combine your two upload streams back 
together and out through that internet-facing IP.

Alan