When to use BGP

[mellwang]

Customer is considering using BGP to resolve EIGRP routing issues. I say they are better served in tune EIGRP by using stub routing, manual route summarazation, etc. Their idea is to create multiple AS and use BGP between them. This will only minimize the problem to a smaller AS. At what point is an AS considered too large.

[Wilson Samuel]

Hi,

As far as I understand the concept of using BGP should be restricted as long as there is absolutely no desire for any Policies/Conditioning of the Routes i.e. there are no route policies that are exclusively desired for a branch or a location.

IF anytime such a requirement comes (e.g. to specify Admin Distance should be changed ONLY for a specific region or Route Manipulation is desiered on different locations in different ways) then one should go ahead with BGP.

EIGRP is a good Routing protocol as long as we use Route Summarization at all the Dist. Points otherwise it doesn't scale very well, at the same OSPF could be the best routing protocol as an IGP as it scales very well for almost all sizes of routing domains.

BTW, I shall be interested to know what EIGRP "issues" are being faced by the customer.

Looking forward from yourside,

Kind Regards,

Wilson Samuel

[mellwang]

Thanks for the reply. Since they grew by aquisition, EIGRP has had a few issues but mainly SIA. By using EIGRP stub where possible and summarizing as you mentioned at the Dist. points, should clean up any problems. I was asking as a sanity check and appreciate yor feedback. I will have to have some discussions with the partner who is suggestion BGP. Thanks