Overview of bgp4, Figure 101 – Brocade TurboIron 24X Series Configuration Guide User Manual

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Brocade TurboIron 24X Series Configuration Guide

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Overview of BGP4

NOTE

Devices support up to 12,000 BGP routes.

Overview of BGP4

BGP4 is the standard Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) used on the Internet to route traffic between
Autonomous Systems (AS) and to maintain loop-free routing. An autonomous system is a collection
of networks that share the same routing and administration characteristics. For example, a
corporate intranet consisting of several networks under common administrative control might be
considered an AS. The networks in an AS can but do not need to run the same routing protocol to
be in the same AS, nor do they need to be geographically close.

Routers within an AS can use different Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs) such as RIP and OSPF to
communicate with one another. However, for routers in different ASs to communicate, they need to
use an EGP. BGP4 is the standard EGP used by Internet routers and therefore is the EGP
implemented on Layer 3 Switches.

Figure 101

on page 660 shows a simple example of two BGP4 ASs. Each AS contains three BGP4

switches. All of the BGP4 switches within an AS communicate using IBGP. BGP4 switches
communicate with other ASs using EBGP. Notice that each of the switches also is running an
Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP). The switches in AS1 are running OSPF and the switches in AS2 are
running RIP. Layer 3 Switches can be configured to redistribute routes among BGP4, RIP, and OSPF.
They also can redistribute static routes.

FIGURE 101

Example BGP4 ASs

Relationship between the BGP4 route table and the IP route table

The Layer 3 Switch BGP4 route table can have multiple routes to the same destination, which are
learned from different BGP4 neighbors. A BGP4 neighbor is another switch that also is running
BGP4. BGP4 neighbors communicate using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) port 179 for BGP
communication. When you configure the Layer 3 Switch for BGP4, one of the configuration tasks
you perform is to identify the Layer 3 Switch BGP4 neighbors.

AS 1

AS 2

EBGP

IBGP

OSPF

IBGP

OSPF

RIP

IBGP

BGP4 Switch