A Variation of Route Flap Damping to Improve BGP Routing Convergence

Abstract

Inter-domain routing stability and convergence delay have significant effect on QoS in Internet RFD is a mechanism to limit route oscillation from spreading wildly and is deemed as a key contributor for Internet routing stability. Recent research discovers that RFD may exacerbate relatively stable routes influenced by path exploration procedure and the interaction between RFD reuse timers. In this paper, a variation of RFD is proposed to deal with the side effect of RFD on routing convergence. Flapping routes are confined by neighboring nodes and invalid routes generated in path exploration are reduced by a RFD-like mechanism more suitable for their characteristics. Simulation results indicate that the modified flap damping mechanism limits persistent flapping routes while causing relatively stable routes converge more quickly