Re: [ncrg] Network Complexity Research Group: Meeting in Paris

[Scott Brim <[e-mail]>]

On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 02:49, Fred Baker <[e-mail]> wrote:
> I don't know that anyone has done a full analysis of BGP. It's probably fair to say that modern BGP isn't a routing protocol; it's an information distribution protocol, and one of the processes that uses its information routes IP. Other processes route MPLS LSPs by one of several rubrics, route IP datagrams via MPLS LSPs, manage remote filters, and other things. That's a lot of complexity right there, let alone "so how do we make sense of MEDs and all that?". There is some good work being done by Tim Griffin at Cambridge, however, who is trying to put mathematical structures around BGP to determine whether the intersection of an announcement policy and an acceptance policy results in stable routing. That will be pretty useful once we understand it better.

Just because BGP is used as a conduit for multiple processes doesn't
increase complexity.  A conduit is no more complex because of the
various cables running through it.  The mux/demux behavior on each end
can be complicated but not complex, as long as interactions between
the clients using BGP (the cables) do not become interdependent.  Of
course this says nothing about the complexity of the processes that
use it such as routing :-p