[Kea-users] Many to one Migration from ISC to Kea

[Darren Ankney]

Hello Kraishak,

There is presently no way to replicate the load-balancing hub and
spoke model from ISC DHCP.  I do not find any issues here:
https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues?sort=created_date&state=opened&label_name%5B%5D=ha
related to expanding the functionality of hub and spoke to include the
load balancing mode.  Given that both servers in an HA relationship
need to be capable of handling the full client, there isn't much
advantage to load-balancing.  Have you considered implementing
hot-standby, when you move to Kea, instead?

Thank you,
Darren Ankney

On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 1:04 AM Kraishak Mahtha <kraishak.edu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I am currently planning a migration from ISC DHCP to Kea DHCP due to ISC’s End-of-Life status. In my current ISC environment, I utilize a "Many-to-One" Active-Active (50/50 load balancing) architecture.
>
> My Current ISC Setup:
> I have four servers where "Server-B" acts as a common secondary peer for three different primary servers:
> * Failover-1: Server-A <—> Server-B
> * Failover-2: Server-C <—> Server-B
> * Failover-3: Server-D <—> Server-B
>
> This hub-and-spoke model is highly efficient for us; by assigning more resources to Server-B, we can handle traffic for three sites with only four server instances.
>
> The Challenge with Kea:
> Based on my research, Kea’s Hub-and-Spoke model currently only supports Active-Passive (Hot-Standby). To achieve Active-Active load balancing in Kea, it appears I am limited to 1-to-1 pairs, which would require six server instances (three separate pairs) to achieve the same result. This significantly increases our infrastructure and resource management.
>
> Looking for some advice from the community:
>
> 1)Is there any way to achieve a Many-to-One Active-Active relationship in Kea using current stable versions
>
> 2)For those of you who moved from a similar ISC setup, how did you handle the jump from 4 servers to 6? Are there any middle-ground configurations I might have missed?
>
> 3)Does anyone know if the developers are considering adding Many-to-One Load Balancing to the roadmap, or is the architecture strictly staying One-to-One for now?
>
> I appreciate any guidance or insights from those who have faced similar multi-site migration challenges.
>
> Thanks in advance
> Kraishak
>
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