Improving Network Agility With Seamless BGP Reconfigurations

Stefano Vissicchio , Laurent Vanbever , Cristel Pelsser , Luca Cittadini , Pierre François and Olivier Bonaventure

IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking June 2013 Pages 990--1002
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Abstract

The network infrastructure of Internet service providers (ISPs) undergoes constant evolution. Whenever new requirements arise (e.g., the deployment of a new Point of Presence or a change in the business relationship with a neighboring ISP), operators need to change the configuration of the network. Due to the complexity of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the lack of methodologies and tools, maintaining service availability during reconfigurations that involve BGP is a challenge for operators. In this paper, we show that the current best practices to reconfigure BGP do not provide guarantees with respect to traffic disruptions. Then, we study the problem of finding an operational ordering of BGP reconfiguration steps that guarantees no packet loss. Unfortunately, finding such an operational ordering, when it exists, is computationally hard. To enable lossless reconfigurations, we propose a framework that extends current features of carrier-grade routers to run two BGP control planes in parallel. We present a prototype implementation and show the effectiveness of our framework through a case study.

Publication Details

Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
June 2013
Published In
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking
Volume & Issue
Vol. 21, No. 3
Pages
990--1002
Publisher
IEEE
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1109/TNET.2012.2217506

BibTeX Citation

@article{Vissicchio2013,
	title        = {Improving Network Agility With Seamless BGP Reconfigurations},
	author       = {Stefano Vissicchio and Laurent Vanbever and Cristel Pelsser and Luca Cittadini and Pierre Fran{\c{c}}ois and Olivier Bonaventure},
	year         = 2013,
	month        = jun,
	journal      = {IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking},
	publisher    = {IEEE},
	volume       = 21,
	number       = 3,
	pages        = {990--1002},
	doi          = {10.1109/TNET.2012.2217506},
	issn         = {1558-2566},
	abstract     = {The network infrastructure of Internet service providers (ISPs) undergoes constant evolution. Whenever new requirements arise (e.g., the deployment of a new Point of Presence or a change in the business relationship with a neighboring ISP), operators need to change the configuration of the network. Due to the complexity of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the lack of methodologies and tools, maintaining service availability during reconfigurations that involve BGP is a challenge for operators. In this paper, we show that the current best practices to reconfigure BGP do not provide guarantees with respect to traffic disruptions. Then, we study the problem of finding an operational ordering of BGP reconfiguration steps that guarantees no packet loss. Unfortunately, finding such an operational ordering, when it exists, is computationally hard. To enable lossless reconfigurations, we propose a framework that extends current features of carrier-grade routers to run two BGP control planes in parallel. We present a prototype implementation and show the effectiveness of our framework through a case study.},
	bibsource    = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org},
	biburl       = {https://dblp.org/rec/journals/ton/VissicchioVPCFB13.bib},
	file         = {:Vissicchio2013 - Improving Network Agility with Seamless BGP Reconfigurations.pdf:PDF},
	groups       = {International Journals and Magazines},
	issue        = 3,
	keywords     = {Routing, Topology, Best practices, Network topology, Oscillators, Routing protocols, IEEE transactions, BGP, configuration, migration, reconfiguration, ships in the night, VRF},
	award        = {Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP)}
}

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