The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is fundamental to the operation of the Internet. In recent years, occurrences of BGP related operational issues have increased, and while overall understanding of the default-free routing system has improved, there is still a long and growing list of concerns. Among these are routing table growth rates, interaction of interior and exterior routing protocols, dynamic properties of the routing system, and the effects of routing policy on both the size and dynamic nature of the routing table. In addition, new and innovative uses of BGP, such as the use of BGP as a signaling protocol for some types of Virtual Private Networks, have created new and unexpected operational issues.
The purpose of the GROW is to consider the operational problems associated with the IPv4 and IPv6 global routing systems, including but not limited to routing table growth, the effects of the interactions between interior and exterior routing protocols, and the effect of address allocation policies and practices on the global routing system. Finally, where appropriate, the GROW documents the operational aspects of measurement, policy, security, and VPN infrastructures.
GROW will also advise various working groups, including the IDR and RPSEC working groups, with respect to whether it is addressing the relevant operational needs, and where appropriate, suggest course corrections. Finally, operational requirements developed in GROW can also be used by any new working group charged with standardizing a next generation inter-domain routing protocol.
GOALS: -----
(i). Evaluate and develop various methodologies of controlling policy information in order to reduce the effect of prefix sub-aggregates beyond the necessary diameter, so as to reduce the Network Layer Reachability Information (or NLRI; see e.g.,draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-23.txt) load on network infrastructure.
(ii). Document and suggest operational solutions to problematic aspects of the currently deployed routing system. Examples include instability caused by oscillation of MULTI_EXIT_DISC (or MED; see RFC 3345) values.
(iii). Analyze aspects of supporting new applications, including extending existing routing protocols and creating new ones. This includes risk, interference and application fit.
(iv). Determine the effect of IGP extensions on the stability of the Internet routing system.
(v). Document the operational aspects of securing the Internet routing system, and provide recommendations to other WGs.