routing meltdown

Fri Aug 11 22:08:47 UTC 1995

As Paul Traina took the time to pound into my skull some time last year,
all difficult performance problems (CPU, memory, whatever) having to do
with BGP4 are due to the number of views, not the number of prefixes.
30,000 prefixes will fit in a 16MB router -- if you have only one view
of each prefix.  You can do route processing for 30,000 prefixes using
a CSC3 CPU -- if you only have one view of each prefix.

If the multiple AS paths are only known to a colocated workstation running
GateD, then the iBGP from that workstation to the router(s) will only 
include one view of each prefix.  And the workstation can fall back on
VM during times when the number of prefixes or views exceeds planning.
And finally, the workstation's memory is probably not going to be limited
to 64MB.

I clearly think that colocated workstations are better than route processors
inside the routers themselves.  I'm less certain that they are better than
route servers and a unified/recursive/realtime RADB.  I'm not sure at all
that any interconnect can, should, or ever shall require this kind of dual-
routing setup for its members.  In other words, why are we discussing this?