bgp best path compare-routerid implementation example

Fri Sep 25 19:17:12 UTC 2009

BGP load-balancing appliances such as the old Routescience Pathcontrol
provided a deterministic end-to-end solution by measuring the RTTs of
the second and third packets of the TCP 3-way handshake between the
commercial web site and user destination networks. A full BGP feed was
required from each ISP in the commercial web site's border routers. Over
time, by measuring the 3-way handshake's RTTs, Pathcontrol would
statistically determine the best route to destination networks, and
cause that route to be injected into the border router's BGP table using
a BGP route-reflector configuration wherein the Pathcontrol was a
route-reflector client that advertised the calculated best route. 

I think that this scientific approach to BGP load-balancing is
intuitively and formally superior to other methods, although bandwidth
scalability may be a drawback of the appliance load-balancing approach.

-----Original Message-----
From: Austin Wilson [mailto:austinw at bandcon.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 11:22 AM
To: devang patel
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: RE: bgp best path compare-routerid implementation example

Dev,

Yes, using that command, it will use the lowest routerid as its
preferred tie breaker path. Though, if all of your providers have
different MEDs and you are using MEDs to engineer you traffic, your
router should never have to tie break any traffic. Also any of the
higher preference metrics will interfere with what you are trying to
accomplish with a lower metric. Dani suggested changing the origin code
so it wouldn't affect what you are trying to do with MEDs.

Everything else is dependent on how you want to manage your network.

Austin Wilson

From: devang patel [mailto:devangnp at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 11:07 AM
To: Austin Wilson
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: bgp best path compare-routerid implementation example

Hi...

So according to command it will select the path received from lowest
router id right... so if you are sure about the path selection pattern
then its good idea to use it...

And true that path selection change based on own network design...

is it good idea to set all received route attribute to particular origin
code "i" as Dani showed in presentation... well again I guess answer
will be depends on network design...

Thanks,
Dev
On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Austin Wilson
<austinw at bandcon.com<mailto:austinw at bandcon.com>> wrote:
Dev,

This is usually used to offset the oldest route metric. The problem is
that when a link fails and comes back online, traffic can shift from one
provider to another in the middle of your billing cycle. This then could
mean you get double billed for that traffic. People use the command to
basically turn off the oldest route metric and use the routerid (not
peering ip) to make the last decision on where to send your traffic.
This is commonly called "tie breaker" traffic. If a peer fails with this
command enabled, when the peer comes back online, traffic should be
restored to the original level before the failure.

A possible issue with this command is that if a local peer's
route/session flaps it could have more of an effect on your
network/router as it will always try move those routes back to the FIB.
That's probably why they implemented this metric in the first place, the
oldest route is the most stable. Another issue is that you are at the
mercy of vendor's routerid when your router decides where to send your
"tie breaker" traffic. Level3 gets most of this traffic since they have
such low routeids.

There are ways to get around this problem and take back control of your
tie breaker traffic. Dani did a pretty good tutorial on this issue and
its located here:

http://nanog.org/meetings/nanog46/abstracts.php?pt=MTM3MiZuYW5vZzQ2&nm=n
anog46

Basically he suggests using MEDs to change the tie breaker as part of a
complete BGP traffic engineering solution. Doing the things listed there
and elsewhere will mean you won't even have to use this command.

Austin Wilson

-----Original Message-----
From: devang patel
[mailto:devangnp at gmail.com<mailto:devangnp at gmail.com>]
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:24 PM
To: nanog at nanog.org<mailto:nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: bgp best path compare-routerid implementation example

Hello Nanog,

I am looking for the *bgp best path compare*-*routerid* implementation
example? I know the function of it but looking for some scenario where
its
been used...

Thanks,
Dev