Multihomed Transit AS
A multihomed transit AS has more than one connection to the outside world and can still be used for transit traffic by other ASs (see Figure 4-6). Transit traffic (relative to the multihomed AS) is any traffic that has an origin or destination that does not belong to the local AS.
Figure 4-6. Multihomed Transit AS Using BGP Internally and Externally
Figure 4-6. Multihomed Transit AS Using BGP Internally and Externally
j Internal BGP External BGP
Although BGP-4 is an exterior gateway protocol, it can still be used inside an AS as a pipe to exchange BGP updates. BGP connections between routers inside an autonomous system are referred to as Internal BGP (IBGP), whereas BGP connections between routers in separate autonomous systems are referred to as External BGP (EBGP). Routers that are running IBGP are called transit routers when they carry the transit traffic going through the AS.
A transit AS would advertise to one AS routes that it learned from another AS. This way, the transit AS would open itself to traffic that does not belong to it. Multihomed transit ASs are advised to use BGP-4 for their connections to other ASs and to shield their internal nontransit routers from Internet routes. Not all routers inside a domain need to run BGP; internal nontransit routers could run default routing to the BGP routers, which alleviates the number of routes the internal nontransit routers must carry. In most large service provider networks, however, all routers usually carry a full set of BGP routes internally.
Figure 4-6 illustrates a multihomed transit autonomous system, AS1, connected to two different providers, ISP1 and ISP2. AS1 learns routes n3, n4, n5, and n6 from both ISP1 and ISP2 and in turn advertises all that it learns, including its local routes, to ISP1 and ISP2. In this case, ISP1 could use AS1 as a transit AS to reach networks n5 and n6, and ISP2 could use AS1 to reach networks n3 and n4.
Continue reading here: The Nexthop Attribute
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