A programmatic multistate-BGP manager for multi-domain software defined networking

Border Gateway Protocol version-4 (BGP-4) is the glue that holds the Internet together by routing Internet traffic around the world. BGP-4 is used between Autonomous Systems (AS) to enable and exchange reachability and routing information. The AS represents separately managed networks that have been allocated public Internet Protocol (IP) number ranges. AS are identified by a unique global IP v4 identifier known as the Autonomous System Number (ASN) in the range of 1-65535 that is allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). An AS network consists of routers, switches and other network devices that are managed and controlled by a single administrative domain. The ASN, utilized in BGP-4 routing, represents the grouping of IP routing prefixes allotted to a single administrative domain. Classless Interdomain-Routing (CIDR) supports hierarchical routing in the Internet backbone. As the Internet has grown, BGP has been updated to tackle challenges, including the growing routing tables, improved load-balancing, BGP-hijacking and security, and AS transit times. One of the major challenges remaining is the BGP convergence delay, which is the time taken for a set of routers to agree on the network topology. Convergence delay has become an issue for large networks due to changing network topologies causing route updates and path failures that cause instability in the network. A network’s instability might cause packet loss or delay, loss of connectivity, and a delay in message transmission. A novel technique named" MultiState-BGP Manager" is proposed in this research that controls and manages multi-domain SDN networks and decreases the BGP convergence delay. It incorporates Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the BGP-4 protocol. The proposed Manager is an extension of the proposed approach "INDOPRONOS" [3], which covers the previous work limitations regarding the high BGP convergence delay and packet loss. The proposed Manager can provide a flexible and programmatic mechanism to enhance the BGP-4 operation. It can also improve End-To-End service performance, enhance routing efficiency, and Avoid BGP-4 instability, which causes unstable networks. In MultiState-BGP Manager, the SDN ONOS controller has been used to implement automated communication between different domains, reducing the time taken to update network devices. The information exchange used for MultiState-BGP communication was achieved using the BGP-4 community attribute to exchange a Path Priority Number between the two domains (customer and ISP). The ONOS controller's BGP-4 module (SDN-IP application modules) has been modified, and the INDOPRONOS module was used and improved. The Path Priority Number is used to send specific agreed information to trigger a provisioning action in the remote domain. The communication between domains can occur manually or automatically without intervention from the remote domain administrator. The evaluation results of the proposed Manager show an improvement in minimizing the BGP convergence delay by 18 seconds and the packet loss by 3.24% compared to the base approach.