blog/ posts/ BGP at 18 Lessons In Protocol Design
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BGP today is 29 years old, but as BGP went 18, in year 2007 Yakov Rekhter, one of the authors of the first BGP RFC, gave a great talk at google about the history of BGP and its evolution over the time. He explains the initial problems BGP tried to solve as it has been the very first draft, version 1. The history of the BGP routing protocol is a history of the internet as we know it today.

This talk covers also following topic:

Far more. It shows a additional view on how to approach technical problems, getting information, analysing data, defining realistic goals, designing, implementing a solution, testing, moving forward.

This is the conclusion of the talk Yakov Rekhter presented at the end of the presentation:

  • Short-term solution tend to stay for a long time; long-term solutions tend to never happen
  • "Good Enough" solutions are sufficient; "perfect" solutions are not necessary
  • Meet market needs and accommodate technical progress by focusing on flexibility and extendibility, not by depending on the "crystal ball"
  • Do not be afraid to question and violate, if needed, "architectural" principles (or any other dogmas)

From retrospective I can say for sure, this tech-talk is the best BGP explanation I have seen, it gives a solid overview over the protocol history, and its design goals at certain periods, how it went from version 1 to version 4, and why it still at version 4, BGP-4 since almost 20 years.

If you are getting first experience using BGP and want to learn about this protocol. Watch this presentation first then get more specific information by reading white papers, books and technical publications.

From the year 2007 until today there has been 104 RFC's published with the topic BGP. f.e.:

"Everything You Always Wanted to Know about BGP (and the Internet) * But Were Afraid to Ask (2007)".