[PLUG] Connection pooling/teaming and ISPs

Aaron Burt aaron at bavariati.org
Fri Sep 10 10:03:02 UTC 2004


On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 09:27:34AM -0700, Darkhorse wrote:
> Why is there a limit for the size of subnet that an ISP will BGP?

Routing tables.  A backbone router has to have an entry for *every*
routable netblock on the Internet.  It was decided that a /24 was the
smallest netblock that'd be advertised, because if they went any
smaller, there'd be too many netblocks in the full Internet routing
table, and routers wouldn't be able to keep up.  

You might think that with faster processors, the routable netblock size
could go down, but network speed and advanced routing protocols are
eating up all the processor power they can.

I've thought of working up a redundant routing thingy using a hosted
Linux box on one end, but (a) there's still a single point of failure
and (b) it's easier to just use the hosted box for the reliable stuff.





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