Routescience?

Mon Aug 20 22:45:59 UTC 2001

Changing routing information depending on traffic is rather dangerous;
do they proivide adequate damping so the system does not oscillate? Is
such damping guaranteed to work under a wide range of load patterns?

NSFNET experiments with dynamic load balancing come to mind.

Now, if I were an ISP operator I would be very unhappy if someone injects
deliberately changing routes into my BGP mesh;  while few such customers
may be surviuvable (if their systems do not get to "metric-flap"), having
many such customers is a sure way to overload core routers' CPUs.

Time to institute MED fixing on customer BGP sessions?

--vadim

On Mon, 20 Aug 2001, Irwin Lazar wrote:

> 
> Is anyone out there familiar with a company called "routescience"?  I caught
> the below press release at and wanted to find out if anyone can relay any
> real-world experiences with their system?  It almost sounds like they are
> using something like a Keynote Systems performance monitoring tool to inject
> BGP path preference information.
> 
> TIA,
> Irwin
> 
> ---
> ROUTESCIENCE DEVELOPS PLATFORM TO CONTROL BGP INTERNET ROUTING
> RouteScience, a start-up based in San Mateo, California, unveiled
> plans for a unique "route controller" platform for optimizing a
> company's multiple ISP links by providing real-time performance
> measurements of paths across the Internet to end users.  Using
> these performance metrics and customer preferences for ISP link
> cost, RouteScience's PathControl platform determines the best ISP
> path for end-users and can then automatically update the
> organization's edge routers with the best path routing
> information.  The route performance measurement relies on a
> patent-pending closed-feedback loop system that does not use
> pings.  Route updates are provided to the edge routers using
> standard Border Gateway Protocol.  A large company with multiple
> ISPs would use the systems to route traffic to the ISP links that
> actually deliver the best end-to-end performance.  The solution
> could also be used by a Tier-2/3 service provider to route
> traffic to multiple backbone carriers depending on cost and real-
> time performance metrics.  The company said default BGP chooses a
> sub-optimal route 50% - 80% of the time, depending on the number
> of alternative ISP paths.  Of those routes that can be improved,
> an alternate ISP is on average 2 times faster.  RouteScience
> claims its system provides deep visibility into ISP performance
> and could fundamentally change network service agreements and
> pricing by moving control over Internet routing decisions to the
> network edge.  http://www.routescience.com
> RouteScience, August 20, 2001
> 