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Friday, July 16, 2010

Internet Backbone and Route Servers

Autonomous Systems (AS) are large networks usually belongs to different Internet Service Providers (ISP). AS’s are connected to each other through Internet Exchange Points (IX or IXP) which reside at virtual edges of Autonomous Systems. BGP routing protocol, handles the communication among these different AS’s creating the backbone of the internet.

Accordingly at an IXP, many ISPs are connected to each other by external BGP peering. Normally these external BGP connections are done by full mesh method. This creates a scaling problem. Route Server mechanism is one heavily adapted method to resolve this problem. Each ISP's BGP router only peers to Route Server. Route Server serves as BGP information exchange to other BGP routers. By applying this method, numbers of BGP connections is can be reduced [1].

Some of the ISP’s allow restricted public access to their route servers using telnet. Most often they allow the remote users to issue commands such as

  • ping
  • traceroute
  • show ip bgp

without login into the router. These are very useful for taking various measurements of latency, packet failure ratios, etc of the internet. For a list of such route severs with public access capabilities are listed below [2].

Hostname

Location

Provider

IP Address to telnet

AS

Peers

Type

route-server.twtelecom.net

Littleton, CO 80124, US

Time Warner Telecom

66.162.47.58

4323

2059

Cisco 7200 12.1(2)T

route-server.eu.gblx.net

Phoenix, AZ 85044, US

Global Crossing - Europe

67.17.81.187

3549

2035

Cisco

route-server.gblx.net

Phoenix, AZ 85044, US

Global Crossing

67.17.81.28

3549

2035

Cisco

route-server.ip.tiscali.net

Cagliari, 14 -, Italy

Tiscali

213.200.64.94

3257

806

Cisco

route-server.gt.ca

Montreal QC H3E 3B3 Canada

GT Group Telecom

216.18.63.214

6539

295

Cisco

route-server-east.gt.ca

Montreal QC H3E 3B3 Canada

GT Group Telecom

216.18.63.214

6539

295

Cisco

route-server-west.gt.ca

Montreal QC H3E 3B3, Canada

GT Group Telecom

66.59.190.81

6539

295

Cisco

route-views.optus.net.au

Sydney, Australia

Optus Australia

203.202.125.6

7474

293

Cisco

route-views.on.bb.telus.com

Burnaby, BC v5h 3z7, Canada

Telus - Eastern Canada

154.11.63.86

852

179

Cisco

route-views.ab.bb.telus.com

Burnaby, BC v5h 3z7, Canada

Telus - Western Canada

154.11.98.18

852

179

Cisco

route-server.east.allstream.com

Toronto, ON m5v 3g2, Canada

Allstream - East

216.191.14.250

15290

146

Cisco

route-server.west.allstream.com

Toronto, ON m5v 3g2, Canada

Allstream - West

209.82.88.118

15290

146

Cisco

route-server.central.allstream.com

Toronto, ON m5v 3g2, Canada

Allstream - Central

216.191.167.134

15290

146

Cisco

public-route-server.is.co.za

Edenvale, South Africa

Internet Solution

196.4.160.227

3741

85

Cisco

route-server.videotron.net

Montreal, QC H3C4M8, Canada

VIDEOTRON LTEE / QMI

216.113.14.121

5769

59

 

route-server.eastlink.ca

Bedford, NS, Canada

Eastlink

24.137.100.8

2610:170:ffff::8

11260

21

Cisco

route-server.belwue.de

Stuttgart, Germany

BelWue

193.196.190.135
129.143.103.78

553

20

Cisco

route-server.cerf.net

Alpharetta, GA 30005, US

CERFnet

12.129.193.235

17233

5

Cisco 7200 12.0(22)S2e

For information on router locations and other information visit here.

Some Important Links to Visit

References

[1] “Route Server” Available at: http://www.zebra.org/zebra/Route-Server.html

[2] “Route Servers”, Available at: http://www.lerfjhax.com/route_servers