Hello,

Just wondering if any technical minded people here on WHT can help me with a few of these concepts:

I need an explanation or definition of Peering.

I understand the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is a routing protocol, but i'm interesting in knowing how it ties in with peering.

My questions are relating to operating a DC, so a big bonus would be if people could explain to me how BGP Peering (the answer to the above two questions) is important to a data center. More importantly how and why BGP is implemented in the process of connecting the outside BW providers connection with to your own internal network.

I'd also like to know the equipment needed in such a process. I've had a basic experience of connecting a simple cable line to my own network through a router and that's the limit of my knowledge, so if anyone could explain the process in depth in regards to a DC it would full some gaps in my knowledge. I'm thinking issues like redundancy of the fiber connection coming in e.t.c.

Some other questions I have:

*Are there any alternatives to BGP?
*What's so special about BGP4?

I have a basic understand, which I'm sure is flawed in some aspects so any help would be much appreciated.

Last thing to say: I'm not thinking of running/owning a data center at all. I've searched WHT before making these posts, and most people who have posted requesting this sort of information have had replies telling them "not to bother". Of course they had intentions of starting a DC... but anyway just thought I'd mention this as I'm counting on the information I receive from the thread ;)

I too would like to know more about BGP4.

I do have some experience in setting up a small data center, where we have 1 line from Verizon Oc3. That runs into our cisco router, and then to our main 24 port routers.

But im not realy techy in that field, i only helped with setting things up.

Chris

BGP is THE routing protocol used on the Internet. There are no alternatives unless you want to do route translation on your own border routers.

basically, you need to use BGP if you want to talk with other Autonomous systems.

Aaron

Originally posted by Fazel3

I understand the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is a routing protocol, but i'm interesting in knowing how it ties in with peering.


Aaron gave the short answer, but a slightly longer version is that BGP is a dynamic routing protocol that use a complex algorithm to determine the shortest path between two hosts.

BGP routers exchange routing tables with each other, these routing tables are constantly updated as network topology changes. All this is done automatically, so packets always traverse the optimal route.

There is an ::ahem:: excellent article on Hosting Tech about BGP and its use in data centers:

http://www.hostingtech.com/nm/01_12_bgp.html

Hope this helps.

Tks uuallan for the link

:D