[c-nsp] BGP ORR - experiences

[Darko P]

Thank you for the feedback!

Cisco responded that ORR is not supported on the 9001 due to numerous bugs.
It's a software thingy.
They noted some 'defects' that have been fixed beginning with version 7.5.x.

Anyway, after Cisco's lengthy explanation, I am now leaning more towards
Juniper or Nokia for the RRs.

We're kind of in a situation where we have over 200 PoPs, and ORR would
solve many of our problems in the mid-term. It's easier to buy a couple of
new RRs than several hundred routers in this economy. :)

Cheers,

Darko

On Tue, Oct 21, 2025 at 12:50 AM Phil Bedard <philxor at gmail.com> wrote:

> A bit late but we (Cisco) do have some folks running ORR but not many.
> Recently I worked with a large provider and in the end they decided to just
> distribute RRs across their network instead.  I’m not aware of any
> limitations with the ASR9K specifically in regards to ORR, there is no
> silicon dependence with ORR in IOS-XR.   It’s what we would call a
> platform-independent function.
>
> However, we typically recommend folks look at the RR appliance or
> XRv9K/xRD for RR use cases since the general CPUs are much more powerful
> than the ones we put into a router RP.
>
> Thanks,
> Phil
>
> *From: *cisco-nsp <cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net> on behalf of Mark
> Tinka via cisco-nsp <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
> *Date: *Thursday, October 16, 2025 at 12:54 AM
> *To: *Saku Ytti <saku at ytti.fi>, Darko P <011.darko at gmail.com>
> *Cc: *cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
> *Subject: *Re: [c-nsp] BGP ORR - experiences
>
>
>
> On 15/10/2025 09:23, Saku Ytti via cisco-nsp wrote:
>
> > We use ORR and add-path 3 (to enable ECMP and to have backup) with
> > about 40 ORR perspectives and +15M RIB. But this is Junos running on
> > compute.
> >
> > You really want compute, not actual router hardware as the CPU gains
> > from modern compute are very significant.
>
> In my IP days (up until about 2 years ago), we ran Add-Paths on a Cisco
> CSR1000v (was in the process of transitioning to the 8000v) route
> reflector with Junos clients.
>
> Worked very well that we did not need ORR, having up to 6 paths per
> client with BGP Multipath enabled as well.
>
> Ate a lot of CPU and RAM on the clients, but I've since heard that those
> RE's were upgraded, so no more concern.
>
> Being able to load balance traffic to the same AS across different
> cities/regions was very sweet. Opened up some new commercial
> opportunities the competition could not support.
>
> Mark.
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