BGP routing dynamics revisited

Abstract

Understanding BGP routing dynamics is critical to the solid growth and maintenance of the Internet routing infrastructure. However, while the most extensive study on BGP dynamics is nearly a decade old, many factors that could affect BGP dynamics have changed considerably. We revisit this important topic in this paper, focusing on not only comparing with the previous results, but also issues not well explored before. We have found that, compared to almost a decade ago, although certain characteristics remain unchanged (such as some temporal properties), BGP dynamics are now 'busier,' and more importantly, now have much less pathological behavior and are 'healthier'; for example, forwarding dynamics are now not only dominant, but also more consistent across different days. Contributions to BGP dynamics by different BGP peers-which are not proportional to the size of a peer's AS-are also more stable, and dynamics due to policy changes or duplicate announcements are usually from specific peers