Re: BGP Confederations

["Daniel L. Golding" <dan () netrail net>]

It's not a fun process. I've given the matter quite a lot of thought.
There are no easy ways to do this. Of course, with sufficient planning,
some scripts, a good lab environment, and a few hours of downtime, a
network can be transitioned. I don't recommend it for faint of heart. The
best candidates for a BGP Confederation design are isolated eBGP networks
(i.e. networks where AS border routers run eBGP, with no iBGP mesh) and
greenfield networks. The last network I worked with that made a successful
transition was Mindspring, AS4355, and they fell into the former category.

The big question is, how big is the network. It's a trivial transition
with 10 routers, lets say. If you have 100 fully meshed iBGP peers, I
wouldn't bet on it. Also, implement communities  - they make certain
aspects of confederation configuration much easier. 

For more information on confeds, check on the NANOG web site. There are
several archived presentations on the subject. 

- Dan Golding

On Wed, 4 Oct 2000, ccie10 wrote:

> Is there an easy way to migrate an existing network running IBGP full mesh
> to a
> Condederation based configration. Any documentation that I have come across
> states that current BGP configs need to be redone and all peering
> relationships must torn down and rebuilt. Any addtional info/links regarding
> confederations would be appreciated
>
> thanks