We describe our findings, which show that route flap damping could suppress relatively stable routes, through both simulations and controlled experiments using BGP Beacons. A BGP Beacon is an unused prefix whose originating announcement and withdrawal occur at well-defined times. We describe interesting analysis results of public routing data from sites such as the RIPE-NCC and Route Views using two beacons that have been lit up in the last few months. Finally, we propose changes to route flap damping that would achieve a good balance of routing stability and fast convergence times.

About the Presenter
Randy Bush works as Principal Scientist at Internet Initiative Japan. Previously he spent a bit over a year at AT&T doing research and working on network architecture. He got some operational experience from being on the founding team at Verio, a backbone provider, from which he graduated as VP of Networking after five years. Before that, he was the principal engineer of RAINet, an ISP in Oregon and Washington, which was Verio's first acquisition.

Randy is co-chair of IETF WG on the DNS, and is currently a member of the IESG, serving as co-chair of the IETF Operations and Management Area, mainly covering the operations area.

As PI for the Network Startup Resource Center, an NSF-supported pro bono effort, he has been involved for some years with the deployment and integration of appropriate networking technology in the developing world.