Session Date/Time: 17 Mar 2024 05:00

Tutorial: Technology Deep Dive

Summary

This session provided a technology deep dive into BGP, covering its core concepts, extensibility mechanisms, scaling considerations, and operational challenges. The presenters discussed the protocol's evolution, its reliance on path attributes, and the complexities arising from incremental deployments and security concerns. The discussion also touched on potential future directions, including running BGP over QUIC and the ongoing effort to improve BGP's operational guidelines and conformance.

Key Discussion Points

BGP Fundamentals: The session began with an overview of BGP as a path vector protocol, emphasizing its reliance on Network Layer Reachability Information (NLRI) and path attributes.
Extensibility: The discussion highlighted BGP's extensibility, primarily through the use of transitive path attributes and capabilities. The challenges associated with maintaining interoperability and preventing attribute escape were discussed.
Scaling Challenges: The presenters explored scaling challenges within an Autonomous System (AS), specifically addressing the limitations of full-mesh IBGP and the introduction of route reflectors.
Incremental Deployment: The inherent issues and complexities of incremental deployments were examined in depth, with particular reference to how new features might impact and change core protocol behaviours.
Operational Considerations: The session highlighted operational challenges, including the importance of consistent decision processes, the potential for misconfiguration, and the need for improved error handling and security practices.
Security Implications: Security considerations such as protocol irregularities which can lead to bugs, and the use of reserved fields were also discussed.
Future Directions: Potential future directions, including running BGP over QUIC and improving BGP's conformance suite, were explored.
Data Center BGP: A point was made that data center BGP has different semantics from Internet BGP and warrants further investigation.

Decisions and Action Items

BCP 194 (Operational Guidelines): Tobias Fibig has agreed to work on updating BCP 194 to include more operational wisdom for BGP.
- Action Item: Encourage contributions to BCP 194 effort.

Next Steps

Follow-up Session: A follow-up session on "BGP Shuffling Data Structures" is scheduled for Thursday at 5:45 PM.
Future Topics: The audience was encouraged to provide suggestions for future Technology Deep Dive topics.