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Distribution of diverse BGP paths.
draft-ietf-grow-diverse-bgp-path-dist-06

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 6774.
Authors Robert Raszuk , Rex Fernando , Keyur Patel , Danny R. McPherson , Kenji Kumaki
Last updated 2011-11-16 (Latest revision 2011-09-15)
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draft-ietf-grow-diverse-bgp-path-dist-06
GROW Working Group                                        R. Raszuk, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                   NTT MCL
Intended status: Informational                               R. Fernando
Expires: May 20, 2012                                           K. Patel
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                            D. McPherson
                                                                Verisign
                                                               K. Kumaki
                                                        KDDI Corporation
                                                       November 17, 2011

                   Distribution of diverse BGP paths.
                draft-ietf-grow-diverse-bgp-path-dist-06

Abstract

   The BGP4 protocol specifies the selection and propagation of a single
   best path for each prefix.  As defined and widely deployed today BGP
   has no mechanisms to distribute alternate paths which are not
   considered best path between its speakers.  This behaviour results in
   number of disadvantages for new applications and services.

   This document presents an alternative mechanism for solving the
   problem based on the concept of parallel route reflector planes.
   Such planes can be built in parallel or they can co-exist on the
   current route reflection platforms.  Document also compares existing
   solutions and proposed ideas that enable distribution of more paths
   than just the best path.

   This proposal does not specify any changes to the BGP protocol
   definition.  It does not require upgrades to provider edge or core
   routers nor does it need network wide upgrades.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 20, 2012.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  History  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.1.  BGP Add-Paths Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Goals  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   4.  Multi plane route reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.1.  Co-located best and backup path RRs  . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.2.  Randomly located best and backup path RRs  . . . . . . . . 11
     4.3.  Multi plane route servers for Internet Exchanges . . . . . 13
   5.  Discussion on current models of IBGP route distribution  . . . 14
     5.1.  Full Mesh  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.2.  Confederations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     5.3.  Route reflectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   6.  Deployment considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   7.  Summary of benefits  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   8.  Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   9.  Security considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   10. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   11. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   12. Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     13.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     13.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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1.  Introduction

   Current BGP4 [RFC4271] protocol specification allows for the
   selection and propagation of only one best path for each prefix.  The
   BGP protocol as defined today has no mechanism to distribute other
   then best path between its speakers.  This behaviour results in a
   number of problems in the deployment of new applications and
   services.

   This document presents an alternative mechanism for solving the
   problem based on the concept of parallel route reflector planes.  It
   also compares existing solutions and proposed ideas that enable
   distribution of more paths than just the best path.  The parallel
   route reflector planes solution brings very significant benefits at a
   negligible capex and opex deployment price as compared to the
   alternative techniques and is being considered by a number of network
   operators for deployment in their networks.

   This proposal does not specify any changes to the BGP protocol
   definition.  It does not require upgrades to provider edge or core
   routers nor does it need network wide upgrades.  The only upgrade
   required is the new functionality on the new or current route
   reflectors.

2.  History

   The need to disseminate more paths than just the best path is
   primarily driven by three requirements.  First is the problem of BGP
   oscillations [I-D.ietf-idr-route-oscillation].  The second is the
   desire for faster reachability restoration in the event of network or
   network element's failure.  Third requirement is to enhance BGP load
   balancing capabilities.  Those reasons have lead to the proposal of
   BGP add-paths [I-D.ietf-idr-add-paths].

2.1.  BGP Add-Paths Proposal

   As it has been proven that distribution of only the best path of a
   route is not sufficient to meet the needs of continuously growing
   number of services carried over BGP the add-paths proposal was
   submitted in 2002 to enable BGP to distribute more then one path.
   This is achieved by including as a part of the NLRI an additional
   four octet value called the Path Identifier.

   The implication of this change on a BGP implementation is that it
   must now maintain per path, instead of per prefix, peer advertisement
   state to track which of the peers each path was advertised to.  This
   new requirement has its own memory and processing cost.  Suffice to

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   say that it took over 9 years for some commercial BGP implementation
   to support the new add-path behaviour in production code, in major
   part due to this resource overhead.

   An important observation is that distribution of more than one best
   path by Autonomous System Border Routers (ASBRs) with multiple EBGP
   peers attached to it where no "next hop self" is set may result in
   bestpath selection inconsistency within the autonomous system.
   Therefore it is also required to attach in the form of a new
   attribute the possible tie breakers and propagate those within the
   domain.  The example of such attribute for the purpose of fast
   connectivity restoration to address that very case of ASBR injecting
   multiple external paths into the IBGP mesh has been presented and
   discussed in Fast Connectivity Restoration Using BGP Add-paths
   [I-D.ietf-idr-add-paths] document.  Based on the additionally
   propagated information also best path selection is recommended to be
   modified to make sure that best and backup path selection within the
   domain stays consistent.  More discussion on this particular point
   will be contained in the deployment considerations section below.  In
   the proposed solution in this document we observe that in order to
   address most of the applications just use of best external
   advertisement is required.  For ASBRs which are peering to multiple
   upstream ASs setting "next hop self" is recommended.

   The add paths protocol extensions have to be implemented by all the
   routers within an AS in order for the system to work correctly.  It
   remains quite a research topic to analyze benefits or risk associated
   with partial add-paths deployments.  The risk becomes even greater in
   networks not using some form of edge to edge encapsulation.

   The required code modifications include enhancements such as the Fast
   Connectivity Restoration Using BGP Add-path
   [I-D.pmohapat-idr-fast-conn-restore].  The deployment of such
   technology in an entire service provider network requires software
   and perhaps sometimes in the cases of End-of-Engineering or End-of-
   Life equipment even hardware upgrades.  Such operation may or may not
   be economically feasible.  Even if add-path functionality was
   available today on all commercial routing equipment and across all
   vendors, experience indicates that to achieve 100% deployment
   coverage within any medium or large global network may easily take
   years.

   While it needs to be clearly acknowledged that the add-path mechanism
   provides the most general way to address the problem of distributing
   many paths between BGP speakers, this document provides a much easier
   to deploy solution that requires no modification to the BGP protocol
   where only a few additional paths may be required.  The alternative
   method presented is capable of addressing critical service provider

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   requirements for disseminating more than a single path across an AS
   with a significantly lower deployment cost what in the light of set
   general network scaling concerns documented in RFC4984 [RFC4271]
   "Report from the IAB Workshop on Routing and Addressing" may provide
   a significant advantage.

3.  Goals

   The proposal described in this document is not intended to compete
   with add-paths.  Instead if deployed it is to be used as a very easy
   method to accommodate the majority of applications which may require
   presence of alternative BGP exit points.

   It is presented to network operators as a possible choice and
   provides those operators who need additional paths today an
   alternative from the need to transition to a full mesh.

   It is intended as a way to buy more time allowing for a smoother and
   gradual migration where router upgrades will be required for perhaps
   different reasons.  It will also allow the time required where
   standard RP/RE memory size can easily accommodate the associated
   overhead with other techniques without any compromises.

4.  Multi plane route reflection

   The idea contained in the proposal assumes the use of route
   reflection within the network.  Other techniques as described in the
   following sections already provide means for distribution of
   alternate paths today.

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   Let's observe today's picture of simple route reflected domain:

                                    ASBR3
                                     ***
                                    *   *
                       +------------*   *-----------+
                       | AS1        *   *           |
                       |             ***            |
                       |                            |
                       |                            |
                       |                            |
                       | RR1         ***        RR2 |
                       | ***        *   *       *** |
                       |*   *       * P *      *   *|
                       |*   *       *   *      *   *|
                       | ***         ***        *** |
                       |                            |
                       |            IBGP            |
                       |                            |
                       |                            |
                       |      ***           ***     |
                       |     *   *         *   *    |
                       +-----*   *---------*   *----+
                             *   *         *   *
                              ***           ***
                             ASBR1         ASBR2
                                     EBGP

                     Figure1: Simple route reflection

   Figure 1 shows an AS that is connected via EBGP peering at ASBR1 and
   ASBR2 to an upstream AS or set of ASes.  For a given destination "D"
   ASBR1 and ASBR2 will each have an external path P1 and P2
   respectively.  The AS network uses two route reflectors RR1 and RR2
   for redundancy reasons.  The route reflectors propagate the single
   BGP best path for each route to all clients.  All ASBRs are clients
   of RR1 and RR2.

   Below are the possible cases of the path information that ASBR3 may
   receive from route reflectors RR1 and RR2:

   1.  When best path tie breaker is the IGP distance: When paths P1 and
       P2 are considered to be equally good best path candidates the
       selection will depend on the distance of the path next-hops from
       the route reflector making the decision.  Depending on the
       positioning of the route reflectors in the IGP topology they may
       choose the same best path or a different one.  In such a case

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       ASBR3 may receive either the same path or different paths from
       each of the route reflectors.

   2.  When best path tie breaker is Multi-Exit-Discriminator or Local
       Preference: In this case only one path from preferred exit point
       ASBR will be available to RRs since the other peering ASBR will
       consider the IBGP path as best and will not announce (or if
       already announced will withdraw) its own external path.  The
       exception here is the use of BGP Best-External proposal which
       will allow stated ASBR to still propagate to the RRs its own
       external path.  Unfortunately RRs will not be able to distribute
       it any further to other clients as only the overall best path
       will be reflected.

   The proposed solution is based on the use of additional route
   reflectors or new functionality enabled on the existing route
   reflectors that instead of distributing the best path for each route
   will distribute an alternative path other then best.  The best path
   (main) reflector plane distributes the best path for each route as it
   does today.  The second plane distributes the second best path for
   each route and so on.  Distribution of N paths for each route can be
   achieved by using N reflector planes.

   As diverse-path functionality may be enabled on a per peer basis one
   of the deployment model can be realized to continue advertisement of
   overall best path from both route reflectors while in addition new
   session can be provisioned to get additional path.  That will allow
   the non interupted use of best path even if one of the RRs goes down
   provided that the overall best path is still a valid one.

   Each plane of route reflectors is a logical entity and may or may not
   be co-located with the existing best path route reflectors.  Adding a
   route reflector plane to a network may be as easy as enabling a
   logical router partition, new BGP process or just a new configuration
   knob on an existing route reflector and configuring an additional
   IBGP session from the current clients if required.  There are no code
   changes required on the route reflector clients for this mechanism to
   work.  It is easy to observe that the installation of one or more
   additional route reflector control planes is much cheaper and an
   easier than the need of upgrading 100s of route reflector clients in
   the entire network to support different bgp protocol encoding.

   Diverse path route reflectors need the new ability to calculate and
   propagate the Nth best path instead of the overall best path.  An
   implementation is encouraged to enable this new functionality on a
   per neighbor basis.

   While this is an implementation detail, the code to calculate Nth

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   best path is also required by other BGP solutions.  For example in
   the application of fast connectivity restoration BGP must calculate a
   backup path for installation into the RIB and FIB ahead of the actual
   failure.

   To address the problem of external paths not being available to route
   reflectors due to local preference or MED factors it is recommended
   that ASBRs enable the best-external functionality in order to always
   inject their external paths to the route reflectors.

4.1.  Co-located best and backup path RRs

   To simplify the description let's assume that we only use two route
   reflector planes (N=2).  When co-located the additional 2nd best path
   reflectors are connected to the network at the same points from the
   perspective of the IGP as the existing best path RRs.  Let's also
   assume that best-external is enabled on all ASBRs.

                                    ASBR3
                                     ***
                                    *   *
                       +------------*   *-----------+
                       | AS1        *   *           |
                       |             ***            |
                       |                            |
                       | RR1                    RR2 |
                       | ***                    *** |
                       |*   *        ***       *   *|
                       |*   *       *   *      *   *|
                       | ***        * P *       *** |
                       |*   *       *   *      *   *|
                       |*   *        ***       *   *|
                       | ***                    *** |
                       | RR1'       IBGP        RR2'|
                       |                            |
                       |                            |
                       |      ***           ***     |
                       |     *   *         *   *    |
                       +-----*   *---------*   *----+
                             *   *         *   *
                              ***           ***
                             ASBR1         ASBR2

                                     EBGP

                   Figure2: Co-located 2nd best RR plane

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   The following is a list of configuration changes required to enable
   the 2nd best path route reflector plane:

   1.  Unless same RR1/RR2 platform is being used adding RR1' and RR2'
       either as logical or physical new control plane RRs in the same
       IGP points as RR1 and RR2 respectively.

   2.  Enabling best-external on ASBRs

   3.  Enabling RR1' and RR2' for 2nd plane route reflection.
       Alternatively instructing existing RR1 and RR2 to calculate also
       2nd best path.

   4.  Unless one of the existing RRs is turned to advertise only
       diverse path to it's current clients configuring new ASBRs-RR'
       IBGP sessions

   The expected behaviour is that under any BGP condition the ASBR3 and
   P routers will receive both paths P1 and P2 for destination D. The
   availability of both paths will allow them to implement a number of
   new services as listed in the applications section below.

   As an alternative to fully meshing all RRs and RRs' an operator who
   has a large number of reflectors deployed today may choose to peer
   newly introduced RRs' to a hierarchical RR' which would be an IBGP
   interconnect point within the 2nd plane as well as between planes.

   One of the deployment model of this scenario can be achieved by
   simple upgrade of the existing route reflectors without the need to
   deploy any new logical or physical platforms.  Such upgrade would
   allow route reflectors to service both upgraded to add-paths peers as
   well as those peers which can not be immediately upgraded while in
   the same time allowing to distribute more then single best path.  The
   obvious protocol benefit of using existing RRs to distribute towards
   their clients best and diverse bgp paths over different IBGP session
   is the automatic assurance that such client would always get
   different paths with their next hop being different.

   The way to accomplish this would be to create a separate IBGP session
   for each N-th BGP path.  Such session should be preferably terminated
   at a different loopback address of the route reflector.  At the BGP
   OPEN stage of each such session a different bgp_router_id may be
   used.  Correspondingly route reflector should also allow its clients
   to use the same bgp_router_id on each such session.

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4.2.  Randomly located best and backup path RRs

   Now let's consider a deployment case where an operator wishes to
   enable a 2nd RR' plane using only a single additional router in a
   different network location to his current route reflectors.  This
   model would be of particular use in networks where some form of end-
   to-end encapsulation (IP or MPLS) is enabled between provider edge
   routers.

   Note that this model of operation assumes that the present best path
   route reflectors are only control plane devices.  If the route
   reflector is in the data forwarding path then the implementation must
   be able to clearly separate the Nth best-path selection from the
   selection of the paths to be used for data forwarding.  The basic
   premise of this mode of deployment assumes that all reflector planes
   have the same information to choose from which includes the same set
   of BGP paths.  It also requires the ability to ignore the step of
   comparison of the IGP metric to reach the bgp next hop during best-
   path calculation.

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                                    ASBR3
                                     ***
                                    *   *
                       +------------*   *-----------+
                       | AS1        *   *           |
                       | IBGP        ***            |
                       |                            |
                       |             ***            |
                       |            *   *           |
                       | RR1        * P *       RR2 |
                       | ***        *   *       *** |
                       |*   *        ***       *   *|
                       |*   *                  *   *|
                       | ***         RR'        *** |
                       |             ***            |
                       |            *   *           |
                       |            *   *           |
                       |             ***            |
                       |      ***           ***     |
                       |     *   *         *   *    |
                       +-----*   *---------*   *----+
                             *   *         *   *
                              ***           ***
                             ASBR1         ASBR2

                                     EBGP

              Figure3: Experimental deployment of 2nd best RR

   The following is a list of configuration changes required to enable
   the 2nd best path route reflector RR' as a single platform or to
   enable one of the existing control plane RRs for diverse-path
   functionality:

   1.  If needed adding RR' logical or physical as new route reflector
       anywhere in the network

   2.  Enabling best-external on ASBRs

   3.  Disabling IGP metric check in BGP best path on all route
       reflectors.

   4.  Enabling RR' or any of the existing RR for 2nd plane path
       calculation

   5.  If required fully meshing newly added RRs' with the all other
       reflectors in both planes.  That condition does not apply if the

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       newly added RR'(s) already have peering to all ASBRs/PEs.

   6.  Unless one of the existing RRs is turned to advertise only
       diverse path to it's current clients configuring new ASBRs-RR'
       IBGP sessions

   In this scenario the operator has the flexibility to introduce the
   new additional route reflector functionality on any existing or new
   hardware in the network.  Any of the existing routers that are not
   already members of the best path route reflector plane can be easily
   configured to serve the 2nd plane either via using a logical /
   virtual router partition or by having their bgp implementation
   compliant to this specification.

   Even if the IGP metric is not taken into consideration when comparing
   paths during the bestpath calculation, an implementation still has to
   consider paths with unreachable nexthops as invalid.  It is worth
   pointing out that some implementations today already allow for
   configuration which results in no IGP metric comparison during the
   best path calculation.

   The additional planes of route reflectors do not need to be fully
   redundant as the primary one does.  If we are preparing for a single
   network failure event, a failure of a non backed up N-th best-path
   route reflector would not result in an connectivity outage of the
   actual data plane.  The reason is that this would at most affect the
   presence of a backup path (not an active one) on same parts of the
   network.  If the operator chooses to create the N-th best path plane
   redundantly by installing not one, but two or more route reflectors
   serving each additional plane the additional robustness will be
   achieved.

   As a result of this solution ASBR3 and other ASBRs peering to RR'
   will be receiving the 2nd best path.

   Similarly to section 4.1 as an alternative to fully meshing all RRs &
   RRs' an operator who may have a large number of reflectors already
   deployed today may choose to peer newly introduced RRs' to a
   hierarchical RR' which would be an IBGP interconnect point between
   planes.

4.3.  Multi plane route servers for Internet Exchanges

   Another group of devices where the proposed multi-plane architecture
   may be of particular applicability are EBGP route servers used at
   many of internet exchange points.

   In such cases 100s of ISPs are interconnected on a common LAN.

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   Instead of having 100s of direct EBGP sessions on each exchange
   client, a single peering is created to the transparent route server.
   The route server can only propagate a single best path.  Mandating
   the upgrade for 100s of different service providers in order to
   implement add-path may be much more difficult as compared to asking
   them for provisioning one new EBGP session to an Nth best-path route
   server plane.  That will allow to distribute more then single best
   BGP path from a given route server to such IX peer.

   The solution proposed in this document fits very well with the
   requirement of having broader EBGP path diversity among the members
   of any Internet Exchange Point.

5.  Discussion on current models of IBGP route distribution

   In today's networks BGP4 operates as specified in [RFC4271]

   There are a number of technology choices for intra-AS BGP route
   distribution:

   1.  Full mesh

   2.  Confederations

   3.  Route reflectors

5.1.  Full Mesh

   A full mesh, the most basic iBGP architecture, exists when all the
   BGP speaking routers within the AS peer directly with all other BGP
   speaking routers within the AS, irrespective of where a given router
   resides within the AS (e.g., P router, PE router, etc..).

   While this is the simplest intra-domain path distribution method,
   historically there have been a number of challenges in realizing such
   an IBGP full mesh in a large scale network.  While some of these
   challenges are no longer applicable today some may still apply, to
   include the following:

   1.  Number of TCP sessions: The number of IBGP sessions on a single
       router in a full mesh topology of a large scale service provider
       can easily reach 100s.  While on hardware and software used in
       the late 70s, 80s and 90s such numbers could be of concern, today
       customer requirements for the number of BGP sessions per box are
       reaching 1000s.  This is already an order of magnitude more then
       the potential number of IBGP sessions.  Advancement in hardware
       and software used in production routers mean that running a full

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       mesh of IBGP sessions should not be dismissed due to the
       resulting number of TCP sessions alone.

   2.  Provisioning: When operating and troubleshooting large networks
       one of the top-most requirements is to keep the design as simple
       as possible.  When the autonomous systems network is composed of
       hundreds of nodes it becomes very difficult to manually provision
       a full mesh of IBGP sessions.  Adding or removing a router
       requires reconfiguration of all the other routers in the AS.
       While this is a real concern today there is already work in
       progress in the IETF to define IBGP peering automation through an
       IBGP Auto Discovery [I-D.raszuk-idr-ibgp-auto-mesh] mechanism.

   3.  Number of paths: Another concern when deploying a full IBGP mesh
       is the number of BGP paths for each route that have to be stored
       at every node.  This number is very tightly related to the number
       of external peerings of an AS, the use of local preference or
       multi-exit-discriminator techniques and the presence of best-
       external [I-D.ietf-idr-best-external] advertisement
       configuration.  If we make a rough assumption that the BGP4 path
       data structure consumes about 80-100 bytes the resulting control
       plane memory requirement for 500,000 IPv4 routes with one
       additional external path is 38-48 MB while for 1 million IPv4
       routes it grows linearly to 76-95 MB.  It is not possible to
       reach a general conclusion if this condition is negligible or if
       it is a show stopper for a full mesh deployment without direct
       reference to a given network.

   To summarize, a full mesh IBGP peering can offer natural
   dissemination of multiple external paths among BGP speakers.  When
   realized with the help of IBGP Auto Discovery peering automation this
   seems like a viable deployment especially in medium and small scale
   networks.

5.2.  Confederations

   For the purpose of this document let's observe that confederations
   [RFC5065] can be viewed as a hierarchical full mesh model.

   Within each sub-AS BGP speakers are fully meshed and as discussed in
   section 2.1 all full mesh characteristics (number of TCP sessions,
   provisioning and potential concern over number of paths still apply
   in the sub-AS scale).

   In addition to the direct peering of all BGP speakers within each
   sub-AS, all sub-AS border routers must also be fully meshed with each
   other.  Sub-AS border routers configured with best-external
   functionality can inject additional exit paths within a sub-AS.

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   To summarize, it is technically sound to use confederations with the
   combination of best-external to achieve distribution of more than a
   single best path per route in a large autonomous systems.

   In topologies where route reflectors are deployed within the
   confederation sub-ASes the technique describe here does apply.

5.3.  Route reflectors

   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.

   Route reflector peerings follow the advertisement rules defined by
   the BGP4 protocol.  As a result only a single best path per prefix is
   sent to client BGP peers.  That is the main reason why many current
   networks are exposed to a phenomenon called BGP path starvation which
   essentially results in inability to deliver a number of applications
   discussed later.

   The route reflection equivalent when interconnecting BGP speakers
   between domains is popularly called the Route Server and is globally
   deployed today in many internet exchange points.

6.  Deployment considerations

   The diverse BGP path dissemination proposal allows the distribution
   of more paths than just the best-path to route reflector or route
   server clients of today's BGP4 implementations.  As deployment
   recommendation it needs to be mentioned that fast connectivty
   restoration as well as majority of intra-domain BGP level load
   balancing needs can be accomodated with only two paths (overall best
   as well as second best).  Therefor as deployment recommendation this
   document suggests use of N=2 with diverse-path.

   From the client's point of view receiving additional paths via
   separate IBGP sessions terminated at the new router reflector plane
   is functionally equivalent to constructing a full mesh peering
   without the problems that such a full mesh would come with set of
   problems as discussed in earlier section.

   By precisely defining the number of reflector planes, network
   operators have full control over the number of redundant paths in the
   network.  This number can be defined to address the needs of the
   service(s) being deployed.

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   The Nth plane route reflectors should be acting as control plane
   network entities.  While they can be provisioned on the current
   production routers selected Nth best BGP paths should not be used
   directly in the date plane with the exception of such paths being BGP
   multipath eligible and such functionality is enabled.  On RRs being
   in the data plane unless multipath is enabled 2nd best path is
   expected to be a backup path and should be installed as such into
   local RIB/FIB.

   The use of terminology of "planes" in this document is more of a
   conceptual nature.  In practice all paths are still kept in the
   single table where normal best path is calculated.  That means that
   tools like looking glass should not observe any changes nor impact
   when diverse-path has been enabled.

   The proposed architecture deployed along with the BGP best-external
   functionality covers all three cases where the classic BGP route
   reflection paradigm would fail to distribute alternate exit points
   paths.

   1.  ASBRs advertising their single best external paths with no local-
       preference or multi-exit-discriminator present.

   2.  ASBRs advertising their single best external paths with local-
       preference or multi-exit-discriminator present and with BGP best-
       external functionality enabled.

   3.  ASBRs with multiple external paths.

   Let's discuss the 3rd above case in more detail.  This describes the
   scenario of a single ASBR connected to multiple EBGP peers.  In
   practice this peering scenario is quite common.  It is mostly due to
   the geographic location of EBGP peers and the diversity of those
   peers (for example peering to multiple tier 1 ISPs etc...).  It is
   not designed for failure recovery scenarios as single failure of the
   ASBR would simultaneously result in loss of connectivity to all of
   the peers.  In most medium and large geographically distributed
   networks there is always another ASBR or multiple ASBRs providing
   peering backups, typically in other geographically diverse locations
   in the network.

   When an operator uses ASBRs with multiple peerings setting next hop
   self will effectively allow to locally repair the atomic failure of
   any external peer without any compromise to the data plane.  The most
   common reason for not setting next hop self is traditionally the
   associated drawback of loosing ability to signal the external
   failures of peering ASBRs or links to those ASBRs by fast IGP
   flooding.  Such potential drawback can be easily avoided by using

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   different peering address from the address used for next hop mapping
   as well as removing such next hop from IGP at the last possible BGP
   path failure.

   Herein one may correctly observe that in the case of setting next hop
   self on an ASBR, attributes of other external paths such ASBR is
   peering with may be different from the attributes of its best
   external path.  Therefore, not injecting all of those external paths
   with their corresponding attribute can not be compared to equivalent
   paths for the same prefix coming from different ASBRs.

   While such observation in principle is correct one should put things
   in perspective of the overall goal which is to provide data plane
   connectivity upon a single failure with minimal interruption/packet
   loss.  During such transient conditions, using even potentially
   suboptimal exit points is reasonable, so long as forwarding
   information loops are not introduced.  In the mean time BGP control
   plane will on its own re-advertise newly elected best external path,
   route reflector planes will calculate their Nth best paths and
   propagate to its clients.  The result is that after seconds even if
   potential sub-optimality were encountered it will be quickly and
   naturally healed.

7.  Summary of benefits

   The diverse BGP path dissemination proposal provides the following
   benefits when compared to the alternatives:

   1.  No modifications to BGP4 protocol.

   2.  No requirement for upgrades to edge and core routers.  Backward
       compatible with the existing BGP deployments.

   3.  Can be easily enabled by introduction of a new route reflector,
       route server plane dedicated to the selection and distribution of
       Nth best-path or just by new configuration of the upgraded
       current route reflector(s).

   4.  Does not require major modification to BGP implementations in the
       entire network which will result in an unnecessary increase of
       memory and CPU consumption due to the shift from today's per
       prefix to a per path advertisement state tracking.

   5.  Can be safely deployed gradually on a RR cluster basis.

   6.  The proposed solution is equally applicable to any BGP address
       family as described in Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4 RFC4760

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       [RFC4760].  In particular it can be used "as is" without any
       modifications to both IPv4 and IPv6 address families.

8.  Applications

   This section lists the most common applications which require
   presence of redundant BGP paths:

   1.  Fast connectivity restoration where backup paths with alternate
       exit points would be pre-installed as well as pre-resolved in the
       FIB of routers.  That would allow for a local action upon
       reception of a critical event notification of network / node
       failure.  This failure recovery mechaism based on the presence of
       backup paths is also suitable for gracefully addressing scheduled
       maintenane requirements as described in
       [I-D.decraene-bgp-graceful-shutdown-requirements].

   2.  Multi-path load balancing for both IBGP and EBGP.

   3.  BGP control plane churn reduction both intra-domain and inter-
       domain.

   An important point to observe is that all of the above intra-domain
   applications based on the use of reflector planes but are also
   applicable in the inter-domain Internet exchange point examples.  As
   discussed in section 4.3 an internet exchange can conceptually deploy
   shadow route server planes each responsible for distribution of an
   Nth best path to its EBGP peers.  In practice it may just equal to
   new short configuration and establishment of new BGP sessions to IX
   peers.

9.  Security considerations

   The new mechanism for diverse BGP path dissemination proposed in this
   document does not introduce any new security concerns as compared to
   base BGP4 specification [RFC4271].

10.  IANA Considerations

   The new mechanism for diverse BGP path dissemination does not require
   any new allocations from IANA.

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11.  Contributors

   The following people contributed significantly to the content of the
   document:

   Selma Yilmaz
   Cisco Systems
   170 West Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA 95134
   US
   Email: seyilmaz@cisco.com

   Satish Mynam
   Cisco Systems
   170 West Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA 95134
   US
   Email: mynam@cisco.com

   Isidor Kouvelas
   Cisco Systems
   170 West Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA 95134
   US
   Email: kouvelas@cisco.com

12.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Bruno Decraene, Bart Peirens, Eric
   Rosen, Jim Uttaro, Renwei Li and Wes George for their valuable input.

   The authors would also like to express special thank you to number of
   operators who helped to optimize the provided solution to be as close
   as possible to their daily operational practices.  Especially many
   thx goes to Ted Seely, Shan Amante, Benson Schliesser and Seiichi
   Kawamura.

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

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   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and S. Hares, "A Border Gateway
              Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006.

   [RFC4760]  Bates, T., Chandra, R., Katz, D., and Y. Rekhter,
              "Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4", RFC 4760,
              January 2007.

   [RFC5226]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              May 2008.

13.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.decraene-bgp-graceful-shutdown-requirements]
              Decraene, B., Francois, P., pelsser, c., Ahmad, Z., and A.
              Armengol, "Requirements for the graceful shutdown of BGP
              sessions",
              draft-decraene-bgp-graceful-shutdown-requirements-01 (work
              in progress), March 2009.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-add-paths]
              Walton, D., Chen, E., Retana, A., and J. Scudder,
              "Advertisement of Multiple Paths in BGP",
              draft-ietf-idr-add-paths-06 (work in progress),
              September 2011.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-best-external]
              Marques, P., Fernando, R., Chen, E., Mohapatra, P., and H.
              Gredler, "Advertisement of the best external route in
              BGP", draft-ietf-idr-best-external-04 (work in progress),
              April 2011.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-route-oscillation]
              McPherson, D., "BGP Persistent Route Oscillation
              Condition", draft-ietf-idr-route-oscillation-01 (work in
              progress), February 2002.

   [I-D.pmohapat-idr-fast-conn-restore]
              Mohapatra, P., Fernando, R., Filsfils, C., and R. Raszuk,
              "Fast Connectivity Restoration Using BGP Add-path",
              draft-pmohapat-idr-fast-conn-restore-02 (work in
              progress), October 2011.

   [I-D.raszuk-idr-ibgp-auto-mesh]
              Raszuk, R., "IBGP Auto Mesh",
              draft-raszuk-idr-ibgp-auto-mesh-00 (work in progress),
              June 2003.

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   [RFC4456]  Bates, T., Chen, E., and R. Chandra, "BGP Route
              Reflection: An Alternative to Full Mesh Internal BGP
              (IBGP)", RFC 4456, April 2006.

   [RFC4984]  Meyer, D., Zhang, L., and K. Fall, "Report from the IAB
              Workshop on Routing and Addressing", RFC 4984,
              September 2007.

   [RFC5065]  Traina, P., McPherson, D., and J. Scudder, "Autonomous
              System Confederations for BGP", RFC 5065, August 2007.

Authors' Addresses

   Robert Raszuk (editor)
   NTT MCL
   101 S Ellsworth Avenue Suite 350
   San Mateo, CA  94401
   US

   Email: robert@raszuk.net

   Rex Fernando
   Cisco Systems
   170 West Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA  95134
   US

   Email: rex@cisco.com

   Keyur Patel
   Cisco Systems
   170 West Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA  95134
   US

   Email: keyupate@cisco.com

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   Danny McPherson
   Verisign
   21345 Ridgetop Circle
   Dulles, VA  20166
   US

   Email: dmcpherson@verisign.com

   Kenji Kumaki
   KDDI Corporation
   Garden Air Tower
   Iidabashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo  102-8460
   Japan

   Email: ke-kumaki@kddi.com

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