How do you optimize network traffic engineering with BGP?

1 Understand your traffic patterns

The first step to optimize network traffic engineering with BGP is to understand your traffic patterns and needs. You should monitor and analyze your network traffic volume, distribution, and characteristics, such as the source and destination prefixes, the application types, the latency and bandwidth requirements, and the service level agreements. You should also identify your network topology, capacity, and constraints, such as the number and location of your routers, links, and peers, the available bandwidth and redundancy, and the policies and agreements with your providers and customers. By understanding your traffic patterns and network conditions, you can define your traffic engineering objectives and requirements, such as minimizing costs, maximizing performance, balancing load, avoiding congestion, or enhancing security.

2 Use BGP attributes and communities

The second step to optimize network traffic engineering with BGP is to use BGP attributes and communities to influence the routing decisions and preferences of your own routers and your peers. BGP attributes are parameters that describe the properties and preferences of a route, such as the AS path, the next hop, the local preference, the MED, and the origin. BGP communities are tags that can be attached to a route to convey additional information or instructions, such as the origin AS, the customer type, the geographic region, or the traffic engineering policy. You can use BGP attributes and communities to manipulate the route selection process, to express your routing preferences and policies, to filter or modify routes, to signal your network status or intent, or to coordinate with your peers.

3 Implement BGP traffic engineering tools

The third step to optimize network traffic engineering with BGP is to implement BGP traffic engineering tools that can enhance the functionality and flexibility of BGP. These tools include BGP Multipath, which allows for load balancing across multiple paths; BGP Add-Path, which allows for advertising multiple paths to the same destination; BGP Link-State, which distributes link-state information such as topology, bandwidth, and delay; and BGP Flowspec, which distributes traffic flow specifications such as source and destination IP addresses. All of these tools can improve network visibility and enable more dynamic and adaptive traffic engineering.

4 Monitor and troubleshoot BGP traffic engineering

The fourth step to optimize network traffic engineering with BGP is to monitor and troubleshoot BGP traffic engineering. You should collect and analyze data from various sources, such as BGP routing tables, BGP updates, BGP attributes and communities, BGP statistics, network performance metrics, and network events and alerts. You should also use various tools and methods, such as ping, traceroute, show commands, debug commands, SNMP, NetFlow, packet capture, and network simulation, to verify and diagnose BGP routing behavior and performance. By monitoring and troubleshooting BGP traffic engineering, you can detect and resolve any issues or anomalies, such as route flapping, route leaks, prefix hijacking, congestion, packet loss, or latency.

5 Secure your BGP traffic engineering

To optimize network traffic engineering with BGP, it is essential to secure your BGP traffic engineering. To do this, you should implement security measures and best practices to protect your BGP sessions, routes, and traffic from unauthorized or malicious actions. This includes using strong authentication and encryption mechanisms, such as MD5 or TCP-AO, as well as route filtering and validation techniques like prefix lists, AS path filters, route maps, or RPKI. Additionally, consider utilizing BGP security extensions and protocols such as BGPsec or BGPSRP to verify the origin and path of a route. Lastly, use BGP monitoring and anomaly detection systems like BGPMon or ARTEMIS to observe and alert on any suspicious or abnormal BGP activities or events.

6 Experiment with BGP traffic engineering

The sixth step to optimize network traffic engineering with BGP is to experiment with BGP traffic engineering. You should test and evaluate different BGP traffic engineering techniques and scenarios in a lab or sandbox environment before applying them in a production network. You should also measure and compare the results and impacts of different BGP traffic engineering strategies and configurations on your network performance, reliability, and efficiency. By experimenting with BGP traffic engineering, you can learn from your experiences, discover new possibilities, and optimize your network traffic engineering outcomes.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?