Route reflector/server appliance for access router aggregation
Hi I working on a solution to offload my current internet facing, and soon to be backbone, routers from terminating IBGP sessions from aggregation network routers. I currently have 4948s (pizza box version of the cat4500) in place, mostly bridging traffic, but some routing (OSPF, couple dozen SVIs with HSRP). The 4948s surpasses all solution requirements (I think) except when it comes to scaling the number of BGP sessions to 80-100. The obvious solution is to replace with a much larger platform (ASR1k, etc), which I am consider as an option but capital is the killer. A more economical idea is to pair the 4948s with a route reflector or server. I am looking for recommendations on platforms that I should consider. I have seen the presentation from NANOG48 on open source route server applications (Thanks!), and I am considering a home grown solution, but I want to also consider any other commercial appliances that we can drop in (with some lab work of course) and buy support services on. I looked at a Vyatta appliance (2500 looks good, but single power supply is disappointing). At each PoP I would plan on having two reflectors/servers clustered, each paired with one 4948. I have 7206 NPE-G2s coming out of service in the future that could perhaps be used, but the timing wont work. If anyone has a recommendation on a platform, or general criticism of the idea, please advise. Feedback, positive or negative, is always welcome. Thanks in advance Eric RR Morin
On the subject of route reflection, I've run into a few people happy with Quaggo or openBGPd on intel hardware. You can throw a 1U box together with dual PSUs, a bunch of ram, and SSD/CF disks for far less than a C or J setup and won't be wasting money on ASICs you aren't using. If I recall correctly this is what Any2 was using when I spoke to them some years ago, but perhaps someone here can offer more specifics. -Jack Carrozzo On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 8:13 AM, Eric Morin <EricMo@barrettxplore.com>wrote:
Hi
I working on a solution to offload my current internet facing, and soon to be backbone, routers from terminating IBGP sessions from aggregation network routers. I currently have 4948s (pizza box version of the cat4500) in place, mostly bridging traffic, but some routing (OSPF, couple dozen SVIs with HSRP). The 4948s surpasses all solution requirements (I think) except when it comes to scaling the number of BGP sessions to 80-100. The obvious solution is to replace with a much larger platform (ASR1k, etc), which I am consider as an option but capital is the killer. A more economical idea is to pair the 4948s with a route reflector or server. I am looking for recommendations on platforms that I should consider. I have seen the presentation from NANOG48 on open source route server applications (Thanks!), and I am considering a home grown solution, but I want to also consider any other commercial appliances that we can drop in (with some lab work of course) and buy support services on. I looked at a Vyatta appliance (2500 looks good, but single power supply is disappointing). At each PoP I would plan on having two reflectors/servers clustered, each paired with one 4948. I have 7206 NPE-G2s coming out of service in the future that could perhaps be used, but the timing wont work.
If anyone has a recommendation on a platform, or general criticism of the idea, please advise. Feedback, positive or negative, is always welcome.
Thanks in advance
Eric RR Morin
On 2010.07.13 10:06, Jack Carrozzo wrote:
On the subject of route reflection, I've run into a few people happy with Quaggo or openBGPd on intel hardware. You can throw a 1U box together with dual PSUs, a bunch of ram, and SSD/CF disks for far less than a C or J setup and won't be wasting money on ASICs you aren't using. If I recall correctly this is what Any2 was using when I spoke to them some years ago, but perhaps someone here can offer more specifics.
I use these: http://www.mikrotikrouter.net/ I just toss the Mikrotik CF card aside, and replace it with a USB thumb drive running FreeBSD/Quagga. For upgrades/testing, I just dd one stick to another, and load up the system in a lab box, do my work, and then reload the router with the upgraded, known working stick. Steve
On 13 Jul 2010, at 15:06, Jack Carrozzo wrote:
On the subject of route reflection, I've run into a few people happy with Quaggo or openBGPd on intel hardware. You can throw a 1U box together with dual PSUs, a bunch of ram, and SSD/CF disks for far less than a C or J setup and won't be wasting money on ASICs you aren't using. If I recall correctly this is what Any2 was using when I spoke to them some years ago, but perhaps someone here can offer more specifics.
A side note - There is not a total commonality of behaviour/featureset between a reflector service at an IXP, and on a single AS. IXP route-servers tend to be deployed on pc servers, because the C and J units don't have features required[1] for IXP operation (unmodified AS-path, filtering between participants, multiple RIBs for shadow-free filtering.) That's not to say that white-box solutions wont work well on your network. It's easy to make the reflector highly available too - just run multiple reflectors, and build multiple adjacencies on your forwarding routers. Andy [1] Some slides on this topic should you be interested : General explanation : http://www.peering-forum.eu/epf3/presentations/day1/inex-epf-dublin-2008-09-... http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jasinska-ix-bgp-route-server-00 Further reading on specific implementations: http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog48/presentations/Monday/Jasinska_RouteSer... http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog48/presentations/Monday/Filip_BIRD_final_...
participants (4)
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Andy Davidson -
Eric Morin -
Jack Carrozzo -
Steve Bertrand