A Scalable and Distributed Architecture for BGP in Next Generation Routers

Abstract

Current Internet is operated based on interdomain routers executing interdomain routing protocols interconnecting nodes of various autonomous systems. Due to new requirements of traffic in the core Internet, next generation routers with enhanced memory capacity and computing resources, distributed across a very high speed switching fabric are developed in order to replace the currently used interdomain routers. An essential requirement for these routers is to redesign the current routing and signaling software modules, traditionally with centralized architectures, which do not scale in order to fully exploit such an advanced router hardware architecture. This paper discusses a first distributed BGP architecture for next generation routers, aiming at increasing the scalability and resiliency. The proposed architecture is based on a set of BGP processes running on a set of control cards of a router. The distributed processes cooperate in a manner that internally exploits the distributed hardware architecture of next generation router, while maintaining the behavior of a single routing protocol process communicating with its peers in the network. The proposed architecture improves both the overall performance and the resiliency of routers in the presence of faults.