Hi people, I would like to gauge interest in the various exchange members at NZIX making a transition from the current OSPF peering mechanism to a BGP4 mesh. The existing OSPF approach is deficient in several areas - I won't list them, as I think there is general agreement that this is the case. OSPF at NZIX seems to be one of those interim measures that, once established, has been difficult to dispense with. Given the relatively small number of networks which connect to the exchange today there is arguably little need to provide a route server or other facilitating infrastructure - a BGP mesh will likely do the job quite nicely. One more more route servers would allow the exchange to scale in future, however, should the BGP mesh become unwieldly. The people who currently connect at the exchange, and to whom this message has direct relevance, are (in no particular order): + Telecom NZ (AS4648) + Telstra NZ (AS4763) + IBM NZ + ICONZ (AS4770) + ComNet + CLEAR (AS4768) + University of Waikato (AS681) + Webmasters (please let me know if I have missed anybody!). I am raising this in the list as it seems to me that the issue has wider interest - for example, any other organisation who is thinking about colocating equipment at Waikato for interconnect/peering. Some points to think about/comment on: + Everybody who wants to peer with more than one network needs a globally-unique autonomous system number (ASN) for BGP. These are available free of charge from APNIC if you are a member. If a transition to BGP is to go ahead, CLEAR (as an APNIC member) is willing to apply for ASNs for any existing exchange members who need them (for the purposes of this transition). We won't be charging anything for this, and you don't need to be a CLEAR customer (although we _will_ want to peer with you). + Everybody who wants to peer needs a router capable of speaking BGP4. Most routers that can talk OSPF can also talk BGP (BGP is way simpler to code!), but the cisco 1600 series are a notable exception. Is this an issue for anybody? + There is a general perception that BGP is a "hard" protocol to configure. I'm not convinced that BGP is any harder to operate than OSPF, but if there is interest/need I'm happy to provide some reference configurations to anybody who needs them. At least 6 of the members on the list above already use BGP elsewhere in their networks. Climbing into a flame-proof suit (better safe than sorry), Joe --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog