[afnog] Internet Traffic distribution management

[Frank Kuse]

Hello Nishal,

Sorry I didn't get your email reply on the first occasion. Meanwhile we currently use all the route manipulation mechanism as you describe with the exception of regional peering options as proposed.
Your option B using the oversea POP could help in future and I will make such recommendations to management.
Thanks once again for the inputs.

Regards,

Frank

Sent from my iPhone

> On 29 Sep 2015, at 23:18, Nishal Goburdhan <nishal at controlfreak.co.za> wrote:
> 
> frank,
> as i mentioned to you in private mail when you asked me earlier …
> 
> the first thing that you have to accept, is that what you _think_ you’re probably going to get by prepending, is probably not likely what will happen on the internet.  there’s a very simple reason for this.  baked into the BGP decision-making process, is something called “localpref” which attaches a preference value to a prefix learnt by network, with the general rule being:  the higher the better.
> any  smart network operator has a policy that implements something like this:
> * traffic from a customer = most preferred (ie. high localpref)
> * traffic from a peer = highly preferred  (ie.  mid-level localpref)
> * traffic from a transit provider = low (ie.  lowest localpref)
> you can make this as complicated as you like (regional peer, US peers in EU vs. US peers in US, backup transit, etc…) but the principles remain the same…
> 
> when you prepend to your transits, you increase the as-path length to them;  trying to make the as-path longer, and hence influence BGP, eh?  but, in most BGP implementations, localpref is considered *before* as-path length.   so, even if you prepend to your transit, if they are using localpref to make your prefixes attractive to their network (as is their right, and what any smart economics-aware netop would do), your prepends are actually just ignored …
> 
> and i suspect you’re seeing this …
> 
> your problem is:
> - you pay for expensive submarine fibre bandwidth to the rest of the world
> - these circuits are unevenly used
> - you want to fix that …
> 
> you can do this best - and mark has suggested this already - but taking control of both ends of the circuit.  instead of landing circuits at N different locations, get your circuits consolidated where possible, and put them on a router that you control, on the other side of … well … side-B.
> that means you have to stop letting the neo-colonial^W^W transit providers come to you, and you need to get to them.  which means you have to start building an international POP …
> 
> consider:  if you manage the router on both sides, and you have multiple circuits on the same routing infrastructure, you have a whole host of new “tricks” that you can play, that are all *internal* to your network, and under you, and your team’s control.  so you can make more effective us of the most expensive part of your investment here - the bandwidth.  sure, you’ll have to buy some colo space somewhere, and some new routers, but, CAPEX is easier to fund that OPEX, which is what you’re spending right fixing now.
> and if you’re in doubt where the money goes, check the price of relatively modern, powerful routers, and compare that to what you’re paying for bandwidth.
> 
> oh.  and you don’t need to pollute the internet by things like silly de-aggregation, like some operators in some countries …
> 
> “overseas POPs” as they are called are difficult to explain to accounting teams, as they usually do not create money for your organisation.  but they save you time, and allow you to be smarter in how you manage your network.  and that’s a value that’s often undersold;  the lesson in “creating value” in these PoPs is left as an exercise ot the reader…
> 
> 
> a workable plan B would be to contact your SP and ask them if they allow you to set communities on prefixes you advertise to them, to allow you to manipulate traffic that’s in _their_ network.  again, commonplace for most of the smart network operators - a list used to be kept at http://onestep.net/communities/ but i can’t attest to its validity - again, ping your transit for assistance.
> 
> hth,
> —n.
> 
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