Subject: Protocol Action: 'Advertisement of Multiple Paths in BGP' to Proposed Standard (draft-ietf-idr-add-paths-15.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 12:59:27 -0700

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Advertisement of Multiple Paths in BGP'
  (draft-ietf-idr-add-paths-15.txt) as Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the Inter-Domain Routing Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Alvaro Retana, Alia Atlas and Deborah
Brungard.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-idr-add-paths/

Technical Summary

This document extends BGP so a BGP speaker can advertise multiple paths
rather than a single best path to peers. It proposes a new NLRI encoding
extension to carry a Path Identifier, and a new capability to negotiate the
carrying of additional paths. These additional paths are intended to used to
eliminate path oscillation, in a number of situations where advertising
multiple paths can improve network convergence, and in a number of
situations where BGP is used in "high fan out" equal cost multipath network
topologies to provide optimal path availability.

Working Group Summary

The working group has reached consensus on moving this document forward at
this point.

Document Quality

The extension to BGP is straightforward; while there has been some
difficulty in coming to consensus on the benefits provided versus the
difficulty in implementing the extensions, the value of the concept has been
proven in deployment scenarios and use cases enough to justify moving
forward with this document. The document has passed through ten revisions
over a number of years, and has been discussed both on and off the relevant
lists by a number of experts in the development and deployment of BGP.

Personnel

   AD: Alia Atlas 
Shepherd: Russ White