Re: [RRG] Route Flap Damping parameters

["K. Sriram" <ksriram@nist.gov>]

Jim:

I am not sure these papers provide all the insights you are looking
for,
but they generally address some of the questions you've posed. 

http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/~ljilja/papers/spects2005_steve.pdf
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~zmao/Papers/sig02.pdf
http://www.antd.nist.gov/~ksriram/BGP_Security_Sriram_IEEE_JSAC.pdf
(The third one includes an analytical sensitivity study w.r.t RFD
parameters;
comparing parameter values used by two different vendors; however, the
study
primarily reports simulation results of BGP vulnerability to attacks on
BGP sessions,
including aggravating influence due to RFD.)

Sriram

At 08:15 AM 6/26/2007, LOWE Jim wrote:
> Hello,
>  
> I have been following the discussion about BGP path hunting
> ('[RRG] BGP path hunting, MRAI timer and Path Length Damping') on this
> list with some interest. With Route Flap Damping (RFD) being a possible
> factor in the observed behavior, I had some questions about determining
> values for its configurable parameters (Suppression threshold, Reuse
> threshold, Time-to-half amplitude, and Maximum suppression time). 
>  
> I understand that prior to the recommendation made in
> RIPE-378 to not use RFD, RIPE-229 made recommendations about configurable
> parameter settings. In reading RIPE-229, it seems the recommendations
> were not strongly based on observations of actual dynamics (although I
> could be dead wrong on this since I'm not familiar with all the work that
> lead to the creation of RIPE-229). As well, from reading a selection of
> papers on the subject of RFD preventing timely convergence, there doesn't
> seem to be an analysis of what might happen if RFD parameter sets other
> than the common defaults were applied, nor does there appear to be a
> history of literature on this subject. My reading in this area has been
> by no means exhaustive, so my questions are: has there been any work done
> on determining what the impact of other sets of RFD parameters might be;
> how have (or might) such sets be chosen; have the dynamical properties of
> the RFD algorithm been worked out - with a view towards assessing whether
> they would even be potentially capable of improving observed dynamics? I
> have been thinking about these areas, but wasn't sure if it had all been
> done before and these were dumb questions.
>  
> Cheers,
> Jim.
>  
>

K. Sriram, Ph.D.
Advanced Network Technologies Division
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8920
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8920
Phone: (301) 975-3973
E-Mail: ksriram@nist.gov
Web:  http://www.antd.nist.gov/~ksriram/