BGP Route Reflectors and

Confederation

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 Foreword

BGP typically requires all BGP speakers in an AS to form connectivity

through a full mesh implementation. IBGP peering limitations, used to
prevent iBGP loops, hinders the scalability of BGP. BGP route reflectors
and BGP confederations are BGP extension techniques used to provide
a solution to this problem, and shall be introduced in this section.

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 Objectives

Upon completion of this section, you will be able to:

 Understand BGP route reflection principles

 Understand BGP confederation principles

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 Contents

Introduction
BGP route reflection
BGP confederation

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 The Extensibility Problem in IBGP

 How does BGP prevent the routing loops?

 EBGP
− EBGP prevents the routing loop through AS-PATH
attribute. Router that receives an update containing its
local AS number in the AS_PATH attribute from EBGP
peer knows that a routing loop has occurred. To prevent
routing loops, the router will ignore the update.
 IBGP
− BGP router will not announce the update information
received from its IBGP peer to other IBGP peers.

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 The Extensibility Problem in IBGP

 The loop prevention mechanism in IBGP introduces the

problem below
 To ensure all the IBGP peers can receive the update
information
− IBGP Speaker must be fully meshed
▪ requires to maintain n*(n-1)/2 unique IBGP sessions
 Solution

 Route Reflection (RFC2796)

 Confederation (RFC3065)

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 Solution of IBGP Extensibility Problem

 Route Reflection (RFC 2796)

It works by relaxing the rule that a BGP speaker cannot

advertise the routes learned from IBGP peer to other IBGP
peers. It allows a BGP speaker(“known as "Route Reflector")
to advertise IBGP learned routes to certain IBGP peers.

 Confederation (RFC3065)

A confederation is an AS that has been subdivided

into a group of sub-autonomous systems, known as
member AS. EBGP peer relationship is formed
between the sub-autonomous systems. IBGP peer
relationship is formed between the BGP speaker in the
same member AS.

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 BGP Route Reflector

AS 200 AS 200
RTA RTB RTA RTB
IBGP

IBGP IBGP IBGP IBGP

RTC RTC

IBGP Full Mesh Specify RTC as Route Reflector

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 BGP Confederation

AS 65001

AS 100

AS 65003

AS 101 AS 65002

EBGP

IBGP

EBGP_Confed

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 Contents

Introduction
BGP route reflection
BGP confederation

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 Different Roles of the peers

 The IBGP peers inside an AS can be Cluster

divided into:
 Client
Client Client
− The clients peer with the route
reflector and exchange routing
information with it.
 Non-Client
RR
− All peers of the route reflector
that are not part of the cluster.
 Route Reflector
Non- Non-
− a router that performs the route Client Client
reflection function. IBGP

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 The Relationship between Peers

 Client needs to maintain only the IBGP session between the

client and RR

 IBGP full mesh is required between the RRs

 IBGP full mesh is required between the Non-clients

 IBGP full mesh is required between the RR and Non-Client

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 The Advertisement Principle of Route Reflection

Cluster

 Select the best route based on the

BGP route selection process Client Client

 For the route received from Non-client

IBGP
RR
 Reflect only to all the Client Peers

Non- Non-
Client Client
IBGP

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The Advertisement Principle of Route Reflection (Cont.)

Cluster

 For the route learnt from Client IBGP Client Client

 Reflect to all Clients and Non-

Clients
RR

Non- Non-
Client Client
IBGP

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 Route Reflection Cluster
 Inside an AS, multiple RRs might exist to provide redundancy for the
Clients. As a result, the routing update between the RRs might
generate a routing loop. We use the concept of cluster to prevent this
from happen.

RR RR
Cluster
Client

Cluster Client

Client

RR RR
IBGP

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 What is a Cluster?
 A cluster is identified by the 4 bytes Cluster_ID. A loopback
address is usually used as the Cluster_ID.
 It is possible to have multiple RRs in the same cluster; one
client can belong to multiple clusters at the same time
 If the route reflector receives a routing update that contains the
local CLUSTER_ID value, the update message will be
discarded.

RR RR
Cluster
Client 10.1.1.2
Cluster Client
10.1.1.1
Client

RR RR
IBGP

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 Loop Prevention Mechanism used in Route
Reflection － Originator_ID
 ORIGINATOR_ID is an optional, non-transitive BGP attribute of Type code 9.

 An originator_ID is created by the first route reflector and will not be changed by
the subsequent route reflectors
 The originator_ID attribute is 32 bits long, it should be received only from an
IBGP peer
 It is the Router ID of:
− routes that are originated by the local AS：Router ID of the BGP speaker
that advertise the route
− routes that are not originated by the local AS：Router ID of the border
router in the local AS
 A router which recognizes the ORIGINATOR_ID attribute should ignore a route
received with its ROUTER_ID as the ORIGINATOR_ID.

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 Loop Prevention Mechanism used in Route
Reflection － Cluster_List

 Cluster-list is an optional, non-transitive BGP attribute of Type code 10.

 It is a sequence of CLUSTER_ID values representing the reflection path

that the route has traversed. The new CLUSTER_ID is prepended to
the CLUSTER_LIST.

 If the local CLUSTER_ID is found in the cluster-list, the advertisement

received should be ignored.

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 Several clusters in an AS
Client

Cluster1

AS100
Client

RR Client

Cluster2 Cluster3
Client

Client

Client

RR RR

IBGP

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 Hierarchical Route Reflection

Level 2 RR

Level 1 RR/Client

Client

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 Contents

Introduction
BGP route reflection
BGP confederation

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 Confederation Terminology

Member AS

AS Confederation AS 1001

AS 100

AS 1003
AS 1002
EBGP
AS 101
IBGP
EBGP_Confed

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 AS-Path Review

 Four types of AS-Path:

Value Segment Type

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝||＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

1 AS_SET

2 AS_SEQUENCE

3 AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE

4 AS_CONFED_SET

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 AS_Path Modification Process

AS 1001

AS 100

AS 1003
AS 1002

AS 101

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 AS_Path Modification Process

AS 1001

AS 100

AS 1003
AS 1002

AS 101

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 Confederation vs. Route Reflection
Reference Comparison
Factor
Both of the methods can further increase their extensibility by supporting
Multi-level multiple-level function. Route reflector supports multiple level reflection
Support structures. Confederation support the used of route reflection in a sub-
autonomous system.
Both of the methods support route selection by using policy control. However,
Policy Control
the use of policy control in confederation is much more flexible.
Migrating from a non-route reflector to a route reflector design is easy.
Complexity of
Conventional This is because the changes that happen to the whole network as a result of
IBGP the migration is less. However, the migration from non-confederation to
Migration confederation design requires major reconfiguration of the routers and a
major change in the logical topology.
All routers in a confederation must understand and support
confederations. This is because all the routers must understand the
Capability AS_PATH attribute used for confederation. In contrast, only the route
Support reflectors themselves must understand route reflection. However, the
client is also required to understand the reflector attribute in new
design of cluster division.

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 Confederation vs. Route Reflection
Reference Comparison
Factor
Inside an AS, route reflection requires only a single IGP. On the other hand,
confederation could be used to run an IGP in one sub-AS independently of
Control of IGP IGPs in other sub-AS, and provides a possible advantage of using
Expansion confederation over route refection. When an IGP grows exponentially,
management can become difficult, the confederation can be used to
reduce the size of the IGP routing table.
Most of the service providers have deployed route reflection rather than
Implementation
confederation. Therefore, a lot of experience in route reflection has been
Experience
obtained.
In fact, AS combination is irrelevant with the IBGP expandability. It is mentioned
here because it is one of the advantages of confederation. An AS can be
AS Combination
combined with an existing confederation. This can be realized by taking the
new AS as the sub-AS of the confederation.

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 Summary

 Explain which problem is resolved

through using route reflectors or BGP

confederation.

 Describe the advertisement rules

surrounding route reflectors in BGP.

 Describe the variations of AS_PATH

used with BGP confederation.

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Thank You
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