Global Routing Operations (grow)

Last Modified: 2008-12-16

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/grow

Chair(s):

Operations and Management Area Director(s):

Operations and Management Area Advisor:

Technical Advisor(s):

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: grow@ietf.org
To Subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/grow
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/grow

Description of Working Group:

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is fundamental to the operation
of the Internet. In recent years, occurrences of BGP related
operational issues have increased, and while overall
understanding of the default-free routing system has improved,
there is still a long and growing list of concerns. Among these
are routing table growth rates, interaction of interior and
exterior routing protocols, dynamic properties of the routing
system, and the effects of routing policy on both the size and
dynamic nature of the routing table. In addition, new and
innovative uses of BGP, such as the use of BGP as a signaling
protocol for some types of Virtual Private Networks, have created
new and unexpected operational issues.

The purpose of the GROW is to consider the operational problems
associated with the IPv4 and IPv6 global routing systems,
including but not limited to routing table growth, the effects of
the interactions between interior and exterior routing protocols,
and the effect of address allocation policies and practices on
the global routing system. Finally, where appropriate, the GROW
documents the operational aspects of measurement, policy,
security, and VPN infrastructures.

GROW will also advise various working groups, including the IDR
and RPSEC working groups, with respect to whether it is
addressing the relevant operational needs, and where appropriate,
suggest course corrections. Finally, operational requirements
developed in GROW can also be used by any new working group
charged with standardizing a next generation inter-domain routing
protocol.

GOALS:
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(i). Evaluate and develop various methodologies of controlling
                policy information in order to reduce the effect of
                prefix sub-aggregates beyond the necessary diameter, so
                as to reduce the Network Layer Reachability Information
                (or NLRI; see e.g.,draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-23.txt) load on
                network infrastructure.

(ii). Document and suggest operational solutions to problematic
                aspects of the currently deployed routing
                system. Examples include instability caused by
                oscillation of MULTI_EXIT_DISC (or MED; see RFC 3345)
                values.

(iii). Analyze aspects of supporting new applications, including
                extending existing routing protocols and creating new
                ones. This includes risk, interference and application
                fit.

(iv). Determine the effect of IGP extensions on the stability of
                the Internet routing system.

(v). Document the operational aspects of securing the Internet
                routing system, and provide recommendations to
other   
                WGs.


Some Relevant References:
-------------------------
http://www.routeviews.org
http://bgp.potaroo.net
http://www.cidr-report.org
http://www.pch.net/routing/BGP_table_size.ital
http://moat.nlanr.net/AS
http://www.apnic.net/stats/bgp
http://www.merit.edu/ipma
http://www.caida.org/projects/routing/atoms

Goals and Milestones:

Done  Publish Risk, Interference and Fit (RIFT) document as WG I-D
Done  Publish Embedding Globally ...Considered Harmful as WG I-D
Done  Publish MED Considerations Draft as WG I-D
Done  Publish Collection Communities as WG I-D
Done  Submit Collection Communities to IESG for BCP
Done  Submit Embedding Globally ...Considered Harmful to IESG for Info
Done  Submit MED Considerations to IESG for Info

Internet-Drafts:

MRT routing information export format (68126 bytes)
FIB Suppression with Virtual Aggregation (57829 bytes)
Auto-Configuration in Virtual Aggregation (11184 bytes)
Simple Virtual Aggregation (S-VA) (19786 bytes)
Distribution of diverse BGP paths. (48788 bytes)
Multi-threaded Routing Toolkit (MRT) Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing information export format with geo-location extensions (18208 bytes)
Unique Per-Node Origin ASNs for Globally Anycasted Services (25842 bytes)
Time to Remove Filters for Previously Unallocated IPv4 /8s (10678 bytes)
Operational Requirements for Enhanced Error Handling Behaviour in BGP-4 (53402 bytes)

Request For Comments:

Embedding Globally Routable Internet Addresses Considered Harmful (RFC 4085) (22656 bytes)
BGP Wedgies (RFC 4264) (24139 bytes)
BGP Communities for Data Collection (RFC 4384) (26078 bytes)
BGP MULTI_EXIT_DISC (MED) Considerations (RFC 4451) (28435 bytes)
Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): The Internet Address Assignment and Aggregation Plan (RFC 4632) (66944 bytes)
Operation of Anycast Services (RFC 4786) (56818 bytes)
Requirements for the Graceful Shutdown of BGP Sessions (RFC 6198) (37906 bytes)