General ISP BGP Question

stephen.stack · ‎09-01-2008

Hi Guys,

I Have a quesiton relating to peering arragements between ISPs at Peering Points around the globe. We have a presense at LINX and MANIX in the UK. And pratially every day we get requests from other ISPs that have a presence here to peer.

My Questions are,

Is it good practice to establish as many peering arragements as possible?

What is the limit of peering arragemnents?

What is the hardware limit in terms of peering arragements (with prefix lists in place)?

Generally, i would like to know other ISPs experience here. WE intend providing content services early next year and out CTO thinks that as many peering arrangements as possible is a good idea. Especially with big isps.

Thanks in advance

Stephen

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cisco_lad2004 · ‎09-05-2008

Stephen

Technically speaking, peering with many ISPs is no problem as long you do not become a transit AS and get your bandwidth eaten up.

from a network admin perspective, I like to keep it simple and peer with 2 to 3 top players.

I make exceptions when a peering partner offers a shorter path to sites of interests for my customers.

If you intent to provide content, I think its ok to have many peering partners. just ensure your policies and filtering is standardized. it will make the admin and troubleshooting easier...but most importantly keep ur fingers on the pulse and monitor.

HTH

Sam

stephen.stack · ‎09-06-2008

Hi Sam,

Thanks for response. I think you are very correct about becoming a transit AS. I am very careful at the moment about peering with people as the network i manage right now, i am new to and as such i just want to understand it fully before i start making big config changes.

Can you or someone suggest how one goes about recurring management of the core BGP system. i.e. checking logs once a day, automated management tools, or just literally loggin into core routers regularly to ensure policies are still in place?

Thanks

Stephen

========================== http://www.rconfig.com A free, open source network device configuration management tool, customizable to your needs! - Always vote on an answer if you found it helpful

cisco_lad2004 · ‎09-06-2008

You can use a tool like Rancid, which could send you an email if the peering boxes config has changed.

another important thing is to keep a close eye on ur traffic patterns and load, there are some expensive softwares which get into details (RAMS), u can use Netflow etc.. personally I just keep an eye on interfaces traffic load and see if anything has drastically changed.

HTH

Sam