Routing Notes

This paper was a summary of the internetworking protocols, and how AS's are connected. The majority of the discussion was about BGP.

This paper was quite valuable, giving a good description of the protocols involved and the problems that arrive from their use. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the economic concerns for ISPs. The transition from academic network to commercial entity was no doubt difficult, but it was interesting how the user demands enforced cooperation.

An interesting aside is how early networks did not always support this framework. AOL is my example from my youth. Traditionally, AOL did not allow you ot leave AOL's network. This paper allowed me to understand how and why they attempted to do that.

Lastly, the design of BGP is great. It's simple and seems to solve most of the concerns of users. However, I know of a few security concerns in the BGP protocol. The use of TCP, in particular, seems strange.

This paper was great, and should be kept in the reading. It was clear and valuable. The reading for this week is a little long, at around 30-40 pages for two days.

Open research questions were not given in this paper, as it was an overview of existing technology. They did mention issues scaling iBGP routers. I personally wonder at how far this technology can scale as we continue to increase the connectivity of our devices. As always, I wonder about alternative schemes and where they are used.

This is a description of how our network works. The implications of the paper are benign for that reason, as it's not really the paper as the technology described.