BGP Table Manners

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BGP Table Manners Interdomain Routing Politics
for the Masses
Dave Aaldering
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Introduction

• Dave Aaldering
• ISP Services
• Dutch / English
• Didam the place to be

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Introduction

• Interdomain Routing Politics
• Research / Conversations / Discussions
• Facts rather than Opinions
• Save your opinions for the end, where we have
  room for discussion
• Work in progress
• Feedback is welcome!

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Introduction

• Many ISPs make 1 Internet
• ISPs must interact to have a good Internet
• Understanding creates acceptance
• Dealing with ISPs means dealing with people

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Contents

• What is peering?
• What is transit?
• Network sizes
• Interests
• Fair basis
• Examples for smaller networks
• Examples for intermediate networks

Examples for big networks Common practice /
Words of advice Round-up Questions /
Discussion Acknowledgments and thanks
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What is peering?

• Peering is the relationship whereby ISPs give
  access to eachothers customers
• Private Peering
• Public Peering (exchanges)
• Carrier Neutral Datacenters

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What is peering?
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What is transit?

• Transit is a service where a backbone provider
  sells access to the entire internet
• Having transit delivered at your door
• Buying at a carrier neutral datacenter
• Delivery over exchanges
• US / Europe

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What is transit?
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Network Sizes

• A network is defined as an Autonomous System
• Size is based on
• Geographical span of the backbone by exitpoints /
  interconnects with other networks
• Backbone bandwidth
• Geographical source, and amount of customer
  traffic

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Small AS

• Customer base in 1 geographical location
• Customer traffic behind 1 exit location
• Minimal backbone to connect to exchange location
  / transit uplink
• Mostly local peers
• No continental backbone
• Buys transit from third party
• Examples ISP Services, BIT, 2Fast, Kabelfoon,
  XS4ALL, Megabit

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Small Intermediate AS

• Customer base in 1 geographical location
• Customer traffic behind several exit locations
• Backbone to connect to geographically spread exit
  points
• Local and continental peers
• Buys transit from third party
• Examples Belnet, Surfnet, BBC

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Bigger Intermediate AS

• Customer base in several geographical location
• Customer traffic behind several exit locations
• Backbone connecting geographically spread exit
  points / backbone
• Local and continental peers
• Buys no european Transit?
• Examples UPC, Tiscali, Interoute

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Big AS

• Global customer base
• Global network presence
• Buys no transit at all?
• Sometimes called Tier1
• Examples Worldcom, NTT, Level3

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Interests

• Financial
• Decrease transit costs
• Increase transit sales
• Scaling bandwidth

Technical Better routes Lower
latency Redundancy
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Fair basis

• Same amount of spent on bandwidth
• Same amount of spent on hardware
• Same amount of network capacity used /
  interconnect location
• Even traffic ratio
• Who pays what? Eyeballs or Content Providers?

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Examples for smaller networks

• Be more autonomous
• Improve connectivity
• Save money on transit
• Operational cost are of a relative low concern
• Transit sales not a primary goal

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Examples for intermediate networks

• Expanding the network
• Improved Connectivity
• New business opportunities
• Bandwidth / Hardware / Colocation / Operational
  costs
• Having to pick up traffic that would otherwise be
  delivered to you
• Save money on transit
• Peering with transit providers
• Having to say no to smaller providers
• Unfair peering
• To enable both parties to sell transit
• To keep up with transit provider peering demands
• More peerings
• Peering locally / saving backbone capacity

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Examples for intermediate networks

• Backhauling transit from abroad
• Save some
• Not being a potential customer
• More private peerings with bigger parties
• No financial drive to peer directly
• Controlling operational costs
• Efficiency in using hardware
• Traffic Ratios
• Traffic Aggregation

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Examples for big networks

• Operating a global network
• Best possible connectivity
• New business opportunities
• Bandwidth / Hardware / Colocation / Operational
  costs
• Make money selling transit
• Peering with other transit providers
• Maintaining full connectivity
• Having to say no to smaller providers
• Unfair peering based on network capacity used
• Possible transit customer

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Common practice / Words of advice

• Be nice to peering_at_company people
• Supply sufficient information in peering requests
• Analyse your traffic flows (Cflow, mac
  accounting, mrtg, yaps, etc)
• Do not assume, but check what is going on in your
  network
• Be professional at all times when dealing with
  peering issues
• Think ahead, but also act ahead

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Round-up

• Different networks and different network sizes
  have different interests and interact in their
  own ways
• Everyone has to guarantee full access to the
  internet and get it somehow
• Smaller networks focus more on technical aspects
• Bigger networks are focus more on financial and
  business consequences of interconnections
• The bigger your network gets, the more things you
  have to take into consideration
• Choices have to be made, you cant make everyone
  happy so start thinking about your network in the
  first place

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Questions / Discussion

• Any questions?

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Acknowledgements and thanks

• Frank Hellemink
• Pim van Pelt
• Tsjoi Tsim
• Erik Bos
• Niels Bakker
• Bill Norton
• Sabri Berisha
• Remco van Mook
• Bart Teunis

Stichting Megabit Megabit Sponsors ISP
Services Many more, who are not mentioned by
name here Thanks everyone!
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BGP Table Manners Interdomain Routing Politics
for the Masses
The End Lets go and grab some beers!