BGP convergence in an MRAI-free Internet

In this paper, we study the effect of reducing the use of BGP’s MRAI mechanism in the Internet. MRAI stands for Minimum Route Advertisement Interval and it is a timer that rate-limits BGP route announcements. In particular, we look into the effects of MRAI removal by simulating router topologies rep...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inComputer networks (Amsterdam, Netherlands : 1999) Vol. 240; p. 110183
Main Authors García-Martínez, Alberto, Torres, Pedro Rodrigues, Bagnulo, Marcelo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.02.2024
Subjects
BGP convergence
MRAI
Route advertisement
Route removal
Route removal
MRAI
Route advertisement
BGP convergence
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Summary:In this paper, we study the effect of reducing the use of BGP’s MRAI mechanism in the Internet. MRAI stands for Minimum Route Advertisement Interval and it is a timer that rate-limits BGP route announcements. In particular, we look into the effects of MRAI removal by simulating router topologies representing all the Autonomous Systems (ASes) in the Internet. We consider the two main MRAI implementation flavors, namely per-session and out-delay MRAI. Reducing the fraction of MRAI-enabled ASes is positive in terms of convergence performance, until the adoption reaches 10% of Internet ASes. Below this threshold, the number of messages exchanged when routes are removed sharply increases, and thus the router load. Depending on the time that it takes for routers to process BGP messages, further reductions in the fraction may even increase convergence time for removing a route. We show that keeping MRAI enabled in few highly connected ASes, the tier-1 ASes, provides some protection against the increase in the computing demand of the routers.
ISSN:1389-1286
1872-7069
DOI:10.1016/j.comnet.2024.110183