[nsp] BGP backup transit link

[Jay Ford]

On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, Nick Kraal wrote:
> We have 2 transit links and running BGP and receiving about 110,000 prefixes
> from both providers. We are trying to use only one provider as our primary
> transit link and the other only when the first link is kaput.
[snip]
> Any ideas or is tweaking with as_prepends the only way we have. been looking
> at BGP link bandwidth but i think this is the secret recipe between two
> autonomous systems only.

You might try influencing the secondary carrier's local preference of your
routes via BGP communities, if they support it.  See
http://info.us.bb.verio.net/routing.html for how Verio does this.  If your
secondary carrier doesn't offer such a function, tell them you'd like it &
that it will become a criterion for future bandwidth purchases.

________________________________________________________________________
Jay Ford, Network Engineering Group, Information Technology Services
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242
email: jay-ford@uiowa.edu, phone: 319-335-5555, fax: 319-335-2951