BGP Failover Question

Hammer bhmccie at gmail.com
Tue Feb 22 18:52:10 UTC 2011


I agree. But swapping providers is not the default answer in some
environments. I work in an enterprise with multiple GE circuits from
multiple providers to the Internet. The lead time on calling up a different
carrier and saying "I need a gigabit connection to the Internet" would
probably be 90-120 days. And then you get to go thru the
contracts/negotiations and MSAs. You don't just flip. In smaller operations
I understand. But I was simply saying that it's not always that easy. If I
went to my boss and said one of our carriers sucks and we should dump them
he would just laugh and throw me out.

1. What are the SLAs with the carrier in question? Do you have them clearly
defined? Are they out of SLA? If so, what compensation is entitled based on
violation of said SLA?

2. What trending are you doing to document the failures in SLA of the
carrier in question? Do we have a documented pattern of poor performence by
using that trending?

3. What are our contractual or legal options based on items 1 and 2?

4. Don't forget about the Layer8 (political) factor. If your telco manager
is buddies with the carrier then you have to double your documentation
against them. Some companies spend tens of millions a month on circuits. You
better be ready to justify yourself.


 -Hammer-

"I was a normal American nerd."
-Jack Herer





On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

> Assuming that he has provider independent space (why run full BGP feeds if
> you
> are not multihomed?), then, actually it's about on par and less disruptive
> in
> general. Add new provider, wait a  day or two, then disconnect old
> provider.
>
> If he's using provider assigned space, then, the big hurdle is switching to
> provider
> independent (requires a renumber), but, that's a good idea for a variety of
> reasons.
>
> I would hardly call the type and frequency of outages described a "whim"
> when
> using that as a reason to change providers. Sounds like he is suffering
> severe impact to his business.
>
> Owen
>
> On Feb 22, 2011, at 10:15 AM, Hammer wrote:
>
> > I'm not argueing that at all. But it wasn't relevent to the question at
> > hand. And depending on the scale of your business dumping providers is
> not
> > something done on a whim. It's not like your fed up with DSL and want to
> > convert to Cable.
> >
> >
> > -Hammer-
> >
> > "I was a normal American nerd."
> > -Jack Herer
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Bret Clark <bclark at spectraaccess.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >> On 02/22/2011 12:23 PM, Hammer wrote:
> >>
> >>> As Max stated, you can set triggers based on thresholds that are
> monitered
> >>> via multiple methods in Cisco IOS. That way you could force the route
> down
> >>> dynamically. There's always a risk when letting the machines do the
> >>> thinking
> >>> but this would help in situations like this. Can't speak for other
> vendors
> >>> but I'm sure the features are similar.
> >>>
> >>> Well as someone else stated, if an upstream provider can't provide BGP
> >> reliably then it's time to give them the boot. Once in a year, okay, but
> >> beyond that, then it's time to read riot act with that provider.
> >> Bret
> >>
> >>
>
>



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