research-article

xBGP: When You Can't Wait for the IETF and Vendors

Authors:

Thomas Wirtgen,

Quentin De Coninck,

Laurent Vanbever,

Olivier BonaventureAuthors Info & Claims

HotNets '20: Proceedings of the 19th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks

Pages 1 - 7

https://doi.org/10.1145/3422604.3425952

Published: 04 November 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Thanks to the standardization of routing protocols such as BGP, OSPF or IS-IS, Internet Service Providers (ISP) and enterprise networks can deploy routers from various vendors. This prevents them from vendor-lockin problems. Unfortunately, this also slows innovation since any new feature must be standardized and implemented by all vendors before being deployed.

We propose a paradigm shift that enables network operators to program the routing protocols used in their networks. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach with xBGP. xBGP is a vendor neutral API that exposes the key data structures and functions of any BGP implementation. Each xBGP compliant implementation includes an eBPF virtual machine that executes the operator supplied programs. We extend FRRouting and BIRD to support this new paradigm and demonstrate the flexibility of xBGP with four different use cases. Finally, we discuss how xBGP could affect future research on future routing protocols.

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Cited By

Lan FBiswas SGui BWu JWang A(2022)Design and Implementation of a Strong Representation System for Network Policies2022 International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN)10.1109/ICCCN54977.2022.9868871(1-10)Online publication date: Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCN54977.2022.9868871
Rybowski NDe Coninck QRousseaux TLegay ABonaventure OChiesa MChoffnes DMarkopoulou ABarcellos M(2021)Implementing the plugin distribution systemProceedings of the SIGCOMM '21 Poster and Demo Sessions10.1145/3472716.3472860(39-41)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472716.3472860
Gui BLan FWang AChiesa MChoffnes DMarkopoulou ABarcellos M(2021)SarasateProceedings of the SIGCOMM '21 Poster and Demo Sessions10.1145/3472716.3472848(62-64)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472716.3472848

Index Terms

xBGP: When You Can't Wait for the IETF and Vendors
1. Networks

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cover image ACM Conferences

HotNets '20: Proceedings of the 19th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks

November 2020

228 pages

ISBN:9781450381451

DOI:10.1145/3422604

General Chairs:
Ben Zhao
University of Chicago
,
Heather Zheng
University of Chicago
,
Program Chairs:
Harsha V. Madhyastha
University of Michigan
,
Venkat Padmanabhan
Microsoft Research India

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 04 November 2020

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HotNets '20: The 19th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks

November 4 - 6, 2020

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Cited By

Lan FBiswas SGui BWu JWang A(2022)Design and Implementation of a Strong Representation System for Network Policies2022 International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN)10.1109/ICCCN54977.2022.9868871(1-10)Online publication date: Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCN54977.2022.9868871
Rybowski NDe Coninck QRousseaux TLegay ABonaventure OChiesa MChoffnes DMarkopoulou ABarcellos M(2021)Implementing the plugin distribution systemProceedings of the SIGCOMM '21 Poster and Demo Sessions10.1145/3472716.3472860(39-41)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472716.3472860
Gui BLan FWang AChiesa MChoffnes DMarkopoulou ABarcellos M(2021)SarasateProceedings of the SIGCOMM '21 Poster and Demo Sessions10.1145/3472716.3472848(62-64)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472716.3472848

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