Route Instabilities on the Internet

The central symptom of route instability is the disappearance of a route that previously existed in the routing table. This route might disappear and reappear intermittently, a condition sometimes referred to as flapping. What occurs at the routing protocol level is that BGP sends a routing update and then quickly withdraws it. A router that receives UPDATE or WITHDRAWN messages must propagate those messages to its peers. These messages are visible to all Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) networks connected to the global Internet. If this behavior continues to cascade, routing performance suffers.

Here are some factors that affect route instabilities on the Internet:

  • Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) instability ...

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