research-article

Shedding light on the glue logic of the internet routing architecture

Authors:

Geoffrey G. Xie,

Hui ZhangAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 38, Issue 4

Pages 39 - 50

https://doi.org/10.1145/1402946.1402964

Published: 17 August 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Recent studies reveal that the routing structures of operational networks are much more complex than a simple BGP/IGP hierarchy, highlighted by the presence of many distinct instances of routing protocols. However, the glue (how routing protocol instances interact and exchange routes among themselves) is still little understood or studied. For example, although Route Redistribution (RR), the implementation of the glue in router software, has been used in the Internet for more than a decade, it was only recently shown that RR is extremely vulnerable to anomalies similar to the permanent route oscillations in BGP. This paper takes an important step toward understanding how RR is used and how fundamental the role RR plays in practice. We developed a complete model and associated tools for characterizing interconnections between routing instances based on analysis of router configuration data. We analyzed and characterized the RR usage in more than 1600 operational networks. The findings are: (i) RR is indeed widely used; (ii) operators use RR to achieve important design objectives not realizable with existing routing protocols alone; (iii) RR configurations can be very diverse and complex. These empirical discoveries not only confirm that the RR glue constitutes a critical component of the current Internet routing architecture, but also emphasize the urgent need for more research to improve its safety and flexibility to support important design objectives.

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Cited By

Khorsandroo SSánchez ATosun AArco JDoriguzzi-Corin R(2021)Hybrid SDN evolution: A comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-artComputer Networks10.1016/j.comnet.2021.107981192(107981)Online publication date: Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2021.107981
Ness MSun X(2020)Policy Units and Categories: Networking Models for Simplifying Security Policy Management2020 IEEE 39th International Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC)10.1109/IPCCC50635.2020.9391572(1-11)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/IPCCC50635.2020.9391572
Li YYin XWang ZYao JShi XWu JZhang HWang Q(2019)A Survey on Network Verification and Testing With Formal Methods: Approaches and ChallengesIEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials10.1109/COMST.2018.286805021:1(940-969)Online publication date: Sep-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2018.2868050
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Index Terms

Shedding light on the glue logic of the internet routing architecture
1. Networks
  1. Network services
    1. Network management

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review Volume 38, Issue 4

October 2008

436 pages

ISSN:0146-4833

DOI:10.1145/1402946

Issue’s Table of Contents

SIGCOMM '08: Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2008 conference on Data communication
August 2008
452 pages
ISBN:9781605581750
DOI:10.1145/1402958
General Chairs:
Victor Bahl
Microsoft Research
,
David Wetherall
Intel Research & University of Washington
,
Program Chairs:
Stefan Savage
University of California, San Diego
,
Ion Stoica
University of California, Berkeley

Copyright © 2008 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 17 August 2008

Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 38, Issue 4

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Cited By

Khorsandroo SSánchez ATosun AArco JDoriguzzi-Corin R(2021)Hybrid SDN evolution: A comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-artComputer Networks10.1016/j.comnet.2021.107981192(107981)Online publication date: Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2021.107981
Ness MSun X(2020)Policy Units and Categories: Networking Models for Simplifying Security Policy Management2020 IEEE 39th International Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC)10.1109/IPCCC50635.2020.9391572(1-11)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/IPCCC50635.2020.9391572
Li YYin XWang ZYao JShi XWu JZhang HWang Q(2019)A Survey on Network Verification and Testing With Formal Methods: Approaches and ChallengesIEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials10.1109/COMST.2018.286805021:1(940-969)Online publication date: Sep-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2018.2868050
Sobrinho J(2017)Correctness of Routing Vector Protocols as a Property of Network CyclesIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2016.256760025:1(150-163)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNET.2016.2567600
Gember-Jacobson AViswanathan RAkella AMahajan RBarcellos MCrowcroft JVahdat AKatti S(2016)Fast Control Plane Analysis Using an Abstract RepresentationProceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGCOMM Conference10.1145/2934872.2934876(300-313)Online publication date: 22-Aug-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2934872.2934876
Sun XXie G(2016)An Integrated Systematic Approach to Designing Enterprise Access ControlIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2016.253546824:6(3508-3522)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNET.2016.2535468
Le FSobrinho J(2014)Interconnecting routing instancesIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2013.225531122:2(540-553)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNET.2013.2255311
Sobrinho JQuelhas T(2012)A theory for the connectivity discovered by routing protocolsIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2011.216508020:3(677-689)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNET.2011.2165080
Benson TAkella AMaltz DRexford JSirer E(2009)Unraveling the complexity of network managementProceedings of the 6th USENIX symposium on Networked systems design and implementation10.5555/1558977.1559000(335-348)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1558977.1559000
Foerster KSchmid SVissicchio S(2019)Survey of Consistent Software-Defined Network UpdatesIEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials10.1109/COMST.2018.287674921:2(1435-1461)Online publication date: Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2018.2876749
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