Most users don’t spend a lot of time worrying about BGP, much less BGP performance. But if you the kind of person who worries about BGP performance, it’s likely very important to you.
BGP is the Border Gateway Protocol. It’s used in routing information on the Internet. Or if you want a slightly more detailed description, it’s used to route on the Internet between Autonomous Systems (typically an Internet Service Provider). It’s the routing topology for the Internet. Worrying about this kind of routing is not something your typical Internet user or even VM/dedi server customer worries about, but a provider does.
Justin Pietsch, a former AWS network engineer, published a research study comparing the performance of various BGP software stacks, and he recently updated it with fresh data. Tested software includes bird, frr, OpenBGP, and gobgp, and he varies the number of neighbors and prefixes in order to compare systems. There’s a ton of data and it’s well-presented here in an unbiased fashion. Pietsch declares “I’m not really going to declare a winner” but does some draw conclusions.
If you’re a provider or network professional, it’s an interesting read.
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Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.
As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.
Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.
His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.
You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.
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