BGP communities and customers

[Jeremy Hinton <jgh () visi net>]

        An interesting side issue to the UUNet peering discussions is the
capability/willingness of providers to create complex BGP policies based
on the wants or needs of their individual customers. What if a customer
requested their routes not be transmitted beyond your network (save your
customers), in essence a private peering of the sort this list is
discussing. Or perhaps more complex cases, where they want it sent to some
of your peers, but not others (for AUP or other reasons). How about on a
route by route basis, if they want some routes to follow one policy and
some another? With creative community use, id imagine most of these
scenarios could likely be implemented with a minimum of difficulty. 

        I'm just wondering if many providers are seeing/doing this 
already, as systems like this could seem to give the end customer quite a 
bit more control of not only how outcoming traffic flows, but incoming as 
well (quite possibly at the price of some redundency). Are many providers 
negotiable to creating and accepting communities from downstream customers?

- jeremy

// Jeremy Hinton                        Visionary Systems, Inc.
// jgh () visi net                                  http://www.visi.net
// Network Operations                          Newport News, VA
// A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men 


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