BGP Route Reflection: An Alternative to Full Mesh Internal BGP (IBGP)

Abstract

Status of This Memo This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Autonomous System Confederations for BGP

“…In addition to potential improvements in routing policy control, if techniques such as those presented here or in [RFC4456] are not employed, requires BGP speakers in the same autonomous system to establish a full mesh of TCP connections among all speakers for the purpose of exchanging exterior routing information. In autonomous systems, the number of intra-domain connections that need to be maintained by each border router can become significant.…”

Distribution of Diverse BGP Paths

“…The main motivation behind the use of route reflectors [RFC4456] is the avoidance of the full-mesh session management problem described above. Route reflectors, for good or for bad, are the most common solution today for interconnecting BGP speakers within an internal routing domain.…”

Internet Exchange BGP Route Server Operations

“…A route server redistributes BGP routes received from its BGP clients to other clients according to a prespecified policy, and it can be viewed as similar to an EBGP equivalent of an Internal BGP (IBGP) [RFC4456] route reflector.…”