Re: Advice on dealing with Sprint

[Avi Freedman <freedman () netaxs com>]

> On Thu, 26 Sep 1996 01:45:57 -0400 (EDT), freedman () netaxs com writes:
> > > > I spoke to a sprint salesperson about 2 weeks ago and was told that I
> > > > could not get any kind of BGP4 peering with Sprint unless I had a
> > > > Cisco 7000 series router.
>
> That brings up an interesting question.  I've been told now that I can
> in fact connect to Sprint, but am I going to be able to do BGP4 peering?
> The connection would be pretty worthless without that, as I have several
> networks I need to announce, and expect to get a full routing table back
> from Sprint.  What is Sprint's official policy on this?

No, you don't HAVE to do BGP4 peering.

You could have them statically announce your networks and you can just
default into them (doing ip-route-cache-based multiple default routes
out of your network).

In fact, they can statically announce your network AND still feed you
full BGP routes as well.

But a 2501 can do what you need fine to start if you only want to keep
some of the routes at first (and throw the rest away).

For example, let's say you take MCI routes from MCI; Sprint routes from
Sprint; and default with an equal weight into MCI && Sprint.  That can
be done just fine on a 2501.

> > Of course, you'd best know how the hell to configure the bay box
> > if you want to go this route.
>
> That goes without saying.  If I didn't know how to configure it, I'd go
> buy a 2500 and let someone else manage it for me, like many other ISPs do.
> As it is, I'm quite familiar with how my routers work, and what their
> capabilities are.  I wish other people were.. I'm always surprised when
> engineers from MCI tell me "Oh, Bay Networks can't do BGP4" (ignoring the
> fact that I *am* doing it with them.)  I have two Bay BCN routers here,
> each card in the router has a 60MHz processor and 64MB of memory.  One 
> processor card is designated as the BGP soloist, and *all* it does is
> process BGP.  If I want one, I can get a processor card that has dual
> PPC chips on it that will run as a BGP soloist.  If anyone thinks Bay
> can't do BGP4, I'd be happy to give them a tour. :)
>
>      -----------------------------------------------------------------
>     *      Jon Green            *   Wide-Area Networking Technician   *
>    *     jon () netINS net         *   Iowa Network Services, Inc.        *
>   *  Finger for Geek Code/PGP   *   312 8th Street, Suite 730           *
>  *  #include "std_disclaimer.h" *   Des Moines, IA 50309                 *

Do what Nathan did if they give you trouble (though they shouldn't,
someone from Sprint said on NANOG it would be ok) - throw a 2501 in 
at first then swap it with the bay once things are running.

Avi

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